By Jennifer Platt for the Sunday Times
The Wrong Knickers: A Decade of Chaos
Bryony Gordon (Headline)
****
The publishing world is always breathlessly awaiting the next Bridget Jones and this book’s cover shout promises it. But The Wrong Knickers, thank goodness, is not the next Bridget Jones, it is the real Bridget Jones.
This is Bryony Gordon’s honest and frank memoir of a single gal gallivanting around London — drinking, drugging, smoking and being generally promiscuous.
In her 20s, Bryony was The Telegraph’s Carrie Bradshaw, chronicling her dating misadventures in her weekly Girl About Town column. She even dated comedian-turned-world-saviour Russell Brand. At one point in their relationship, he sang “You’re Beautiful” over the phone to her while she was queuing for coffee. He then moved on to Kate Moss.
Her book’s title derives from the opening chapter, when the still-wet-behind-the-ears Bryony has her first one-night stand. We meet her in a bar, being picked up by the handsome Josh. She is picturing spending the rest of her life with him, but the words he whispers into her ear puncture her daydream: “Fancy a fuck?”
Hoping that having sex with him will propel them into a relationship, Bryony decides against all her feelings and better judgment to go home with him. The next morning he hands her a pair of knickers — which are not hers.
So. This ain’t a pretty pink chick-lit book. This is raw. This is sad. This is watching self-destruction. There are embarrassing and awkward sexcapades and sad and horrific drug and drinking binges.
Things become ever messier and darker for Bryony. She is broke because of her coke habit (but not really, as her parents are rich and they send her money weekly) and she gets caught up in a relationship with a married man. “I tell myself I’m having a relationship on my terms — one that allows me to have sex and affection without the whole getting tied down thing. Inside I have darkened; I feel dead behind the eyes.”
Bryony’s journalist mother, Jane, wrote a touching review of her memoir, published in the Daily Mail. Jane explains how guilty she felt for neglecting her daughter. When she read the book she was haunted by the question, “Where on earth was this poor girl’s mother when all this was going on?”
Just as there seems to be no redemption for Bryony, no hope of her ever achieving a normal life, the book ends and the last page is the author bio: “Bryony is now 33 and lives in south London with her baby daughter, Edie, and her husband, a financial journalist. The last sentence is one she never thought she would see written down on paper.” Awww.
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Book details
- The Wrong Knicker: A Decade of Chaos by Bryony Gordon
EAN: 9781472210142
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