Although hearing about someone else’s personal memorabilia is as dull as it ever was — at its low points, reading this book can feel like being trapped in a conversation with an uncle who is enjoying his reminiscences rather more than you are — Dyer is wonderful on the strangeness of remembering itself ... Records the kinds of memories we all have...but also the vividly remembered oddities ... Dyer’s memoir deftly captures this transformation, one both unlikely and inevitable.
A good memoir needs to be both particular and universal, which Dyer achieves by applying his idiosyncratic world view to experiences many of us will recognise ... I was more or less constantly giggling for pages at a time ... Extraordinarily moving ... If you’ve read Dyer before then you’ll need no persuasion to read this book. If you haven’t, it’s the perfect place to start.
Page after solid page is full of precise recall, with nothing blurred at all ... A little bit memoir-by-numbers at times, and has some of the self- importance he punctures when he discusses writers who 'make a writerly meal' of their subject. Reading him can feel like a writerly meal, probably best savoured in small portions. That said, he is a serious writer, and brings a satisfying level of sophistication to this engagement with his own past.
Droll, erudite, digressive, self-deprecating, laid-back rather than standup in his humour – the Geoff Dyer voice is unmistakable ... It’s a while before he hits his stride.
Wonderfully wry ... Insightful, conversational, and often very funny, Dyer’s memoir is a glorious consideration of class, family, and the vagaries of childhood.
