Autobiographies that end too early

[Rolf Lundgren]

300 pages on school days then I turn 21, get my big break in stand-up and the book ends. Vic Reeves' Me:Moir does this and I believe Jack Dee's does as well. Stephen Fry has written two autobiographies and only gets up to 30 years old.

Not limited to comedians either. Steve Guttenberg's autobiography The Guttenberg Bible is brilliant, a very funny and insightful of how he got into Hollywood and starred in major movies...then abruptly ends without explanation in 1995 (the book was published in 2012). What news of why it tailed off so quickly? What tales of excess or revenge or skulduggery that hampered a flourishing career? Sorry, out of luck.

Even Pat Nevin's very good The Accidental Footballer ends when he moves from Everton leaving a further 8 years of his career unrecorded. He even states that the characters and stories from his Tranmere days were more entertaining and exciting than anything that had gone before (Pat, you tease!).

Is it all just a cynical ploy to eke another volume out of the publisher/paying audience? Or are uni japes more interesting than BAFTA after parties?

[SweetPomPom]

Will Sergeant's recent Bunnyman book pretty much finishes as the Bunnymen start. Great for the follow up but argh!

[Magnum Valentino]

Simon Pegg's does this and was never followed up, whereas Chris Jericho's also does it and he's had four more since. Half and half 'the journey not the destination' and 'whet the appetite for future sure-sellers', I reckon.

[Gurke and Hare]

Alexei Sayle's most recent ended just before Stuff, which was a bit annoying as it's the best thing he's ever done.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Danny Baker's first ends when he's about 18, I didn't mind as I really enjoyed it, but then found the second volume insufferable as he's so fucking smug in it, and never bothered with the third.

[neveragain]

Cleese's genuinely (and these days surprisingly) brilliant So Anyway... ends, if I remember rightly, just at the point of Python starting but flashes forward to the O2 shows for the epilogue. Or possibly prologue. But that's fine really as so much has been written about Python anyway.

Daisy May Cooper's recent book is similar as it ends just as This Country goes into production, but is very funny throughout if a bit padded (one lengthy section from the introduction is seemingly copy-and-pasted into a later part of the book.)

[FredNurke]

I had the idea that a second volume is to be expected from Cleese, but I may be misremembering / thinking wishfully. As you say, the pre-Python book is excellent.

[Johnboy]

Joe Jackson and Sting wrote good books that stopped at the point their first albums came out.

[Brundle-Fly]

Joe Jackson and Sting wrote good books that stopped at the point their first albums came out.

Frustratingly, that's the same with Madness's pre-chart success autobiography, Before We Was We. Apparently, the boys just didn't think it would be that interesting so no Vol 2 on the cards; although Suggs covers a lot of the band's career in his autobiography, That Close. There have been a fair few dramas behind the scenes over the years and I reckon they just don't want to rake them up. The other factor is they can't remember anything because 80% of Madness were completely pissed throughout the eighties/ nineties and beyooooonnnnd! Chrissy Boy (the unofficial custodian) is the only member who can seem to recall every detail.

[Rolf Lundgren]

Danny Baker's first ends when he's about 18, I didn't mind as I really enjoyed it, but then found the second volume insufferable as he's so fucking smug in it, and never bothered with the third.

The third is worth it alone for his encounter with Hughie Green and his idea for a primetime comeback. The last part of the book is an unflinching retelling of his time on chemotherapy and it's absolutely brutal. Baker very rarely dwells on the negative so when he goes into such well written detail it's especially haunting. It very much feels like he's getting it out of his system.

Cleese's genuinely (and these days surprisingly) brilliant So Anyway... ends, if I remember rightly, just at the point of Python starting but flashes forward to the O2 shows for the epilogue. Or possibly prologue. But that's fine really as so much has been written about Python anyway.

I feel my petard hoisting me here because that is a great autobiography. Particularly enjoyed the stories about his mad mum and had a terrific eye for detail when it came to her erratic behaviour. Another volume going into Python, Fawlty and beyond would be welcome but unlikely to be forthcoming as I don't think he's interested.

[neveragain]

Yeah, I got the feeling it had fallen by the wayside.

[Gurke and Hare]

Another volume going into Python, Fawlty and beyond would be welcome but unlikely to be forthcoming as I don't think he's interested.

Meh, he'd probably just start ranting about all the stuff they wouldn't be allowed to do now because of the wokes.

[Mister Six]

Is it all just a cynical ploy to eke another volume out of the publisher/paying audience?

Yes.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Stephen Fry has written two autobiographies and only gets up to 30 years old.

He's actually written three, but the third from what I remember doesn't move us much further on than the one before. A lot on his cocaine addiction, with plenty of disingenuous 'naughty Stephen, slap on the wrist, what appalling self-indulgence' in between the anecdotes. Seems like the publisher pressed him to write a book to replace the previous two but with added drug stories to sell it. Fry is very annoying throughout.

[neveragain]

He's actually written three, but the third from what I remember doesn't move us much further on than the one before. A lot on his cocaine addiction, with plenty of disingenuous 'naughty Stephen, slap on the wrist, what appalling self-indulgence' in between the anecdotes. Seems like the publisher pressed him to write a book to replace the previous two but with added drug stories to sell it. Fry is very annoying throughout.

It's also padded out with loads of incredibly tedious diary entries. Listening to the audiobook induced catatonia (not the singer).

[kalowski]

Joe Jackson and Sting wrote good books that stopped at the point their first albums came out.

If only Sting had stopped at the point his first album came out, or, let's face it, before.

[markburgle]

It's also padded out with loads of incredibly tedious diary entries. Listening to the audiobook induced catatonia (not the singer).

And (in keeping with the subject of the thread) it stopped before the Cellmates debacle, which you would think any 90's-set Fry autobiog would have to be building up to. Absolute swiz.

This takedown of it isn't as funny as I remembered but maybe you have to be smarting from just having read the thing for it to really resonate, oh well fuckit post

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/12/more-fool-me-stephen-fry-digested-read

[turnstyle]

Am I too late to post 'Anne Frank'?

Fuck it, I'm going for it.

Anne Frank.

[willbo]

Lost interest in Ronnie James Dio's supposed one (not sure how much he actually wrote) when I found out he only got up to the 70s. I prefer his old magazine interviews to be honest

[BJBMK2]

Ken Russell's book does this, in reverse. Skims over most of the glory years that most people would want to read about, in order to rant about his current (at the time of writing) problems and creative frustrations.

See also: Mark E Smith.

[Twit 2]

If only Sting had stopped at the point his first album came out, or, let's face it, before.

The Soul Cages is great.

[shiftwork2]

Is it all just a cynical ploy to eke another volume out of the publisher/paying audience?

Yes.  Multiple volume autobiographies for celebrities in their 40s.  The first volume will end with '...and I was on the cusp of stardom'.  Compare that with an actual fascinating life such as Kenneth Williams ffs.

I had Nick Frost's audiobook once.  After hours of wittering about how his furniture-trading Dad really deserved but did not actually get the tennis-court mansion in Essex, he mentioned '...and in book 2...' and I turned it off for good.

[PammySpacek]

If you want a total subversion of the whole "subject focusing at tedious length on their childhood" thing, then there's "Bad Vibes" by Luke Haines. It starts with his very early quasi-fame as a guitarist in a post-C86 band (who were friends with the Go-Betweens and were in the same circles as some Creation / Cherry Red / Fire Records groups), and then covers the entirety of The Auteurs. I believe he mentions his childhood precisely twice in the book, the first being a literal footnote (where he gives some extremely terse info about where he was born and the year and leaves it at that).

While it does commit the sin of not putting everything into one book, he actually did get to put out a second volume which covered Black Box Recorder and the start of his solo career.

[Replies From View]

Why do people so rarely write their autobiographies after they have died?

[FredNurke]

Because ghostwriters aren't all they're cracked up to be.

[jonbob]

For my money the absolute classic example of this is 80s Aussie musician James Freud's "I am the Voice Left from Drinking" which ends with him overcoming his addictions and its follow up "I am the Voice Left from Rehab", in which he admits he was lying in the last book when he said he was sober. They're actually both very readable and worth getting if

[Ray Travez]

This takedown of it isn't as funny as I remembered but maybe you have to be smarting from just having read the thing for it to really resonate, oh well fuckit post

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/12/more-fool-me-stephen-fry-digested-read

Cheers, enjoyed that.

It didn't exactly end too soon, but Chrissie Hynde's autobiography ends quite abruptly, with the deaths of two of her band members. She covers the next thirty or so years in a few paragraphs then wraps up. Definitely left me wanting to hear more about other bits of her life, but I loved it anyway.

My wife was frustrated with Brett Anderson's second book, due to the omissions. You want to hear about the drugs don't you? But it was all 'we excused ourselves for a period of bacchanalian excess... next morning, I awoke and...'

[Ray Travez]

For my money the absolute classic example of this is 80s Aussie musician James Freud's "I am the Voice Left from Drinking" which ends with him overcoming his addictions and its follow up "I am the Voice Left from Rehab", in which he admits he was lying in the last book when he said he was sober. They're actually both very readable and worth getting if

I like the sound of these. Probably should finish the audiobook of Mark Lanagan's Sing Backwards and Weep first.