I ripped through I Fear For This Boy like a train, snorting with laughter and delight as I rattled along,
pulled by the power of Fennell’s unique story-telling genius….
I can’t recommend the ride highly enough.
Stephen Fry
Writing effective comedy is very difficult. True comic genius, the ability to create a unique tone of voice – deadpan, perfectly timed, self-deprecating, abjuring all whimsy (the British disease) and grandstanding – is extremely rare. One thinks of SJ Perelman, Peter de Vries, the Grossmiths, PG Wodehouse amongst very few others. One name that can be added to this tiny and exclusive club is Theo Fennell who has published, this year, his memoir I FEAR FOR THIS BOY: Some Chapters of Accidents (Mensch).
It relates incidents in Fennell’s life where everything that could go wrong, does indeed do so. Some are cataclysmically embarrassing; others are moments of wonderful private fecklessness. But the end result is that Fennell has produced one of the funniest books I have ever read. Utterly beguiling and superbly well-written, it will become a classic of the genre, I predict.
William Boyd