A-LIST CELEBS TURNED A-LIST AUTHORS!
GRAHAM NORTON Canning the laughter, Irish comedian and talk show host Graham has written his darkest book to date…
Ever since Robin Williams’ tragic death in 2014, a spotlight has been placed on the dark side of comedy, making the sad clown paradox suddenly not so funny any more.
However, for Bafta-winning comedian Graham Norton, he’s managed to channel that darkness into writing, delivering several bestselling novels that combine acidtongued wit with startling imagery and themes so expertly drawn you almost forget he’s made a living out of making us laugh every week for 25 years on The Graham
Norton Show.
Graham, 59, first delved into writing in the late ’90s, mainly focusing on historical non-fiction titles, before moving onto emotionally driven and perceptive fiction novels in 2016. It’s in this space that he’s really stretched out his wings and taken his “little side job” and turned it into a bona fide career.
In his debut, Holding (Hachette, $22.99), human remains are found in a small quaint village in West Cork,
Ireland, and everyone is a suspect. The novel was so well-received and its characters so fully realised, it was turned into a TV series this year (now available to watch on SBS On Demand).
His second, A Keeper (Hachette, $22.99), is a murder-mystery filled with impending doom and edge-of-your-seat thrills, while 2020’s Home Stretch (Hachette, $22.99), his third novel, about a wedding party torn apart by a horrific accident, demands our attention and achieved just that by landing him on many of the world’s bestseller lists.
But for his fourth, Graham has really cemented his name as a major literary star. In Forever Home, Carol, a divorced teacher ravaged by town gossip, is forced to give up her home and move back to her parents’ home.
Without giving too much away, it’s full of twists you’ll never see coming. Graham calls it the “funniest, darkest and most ambitious” novel he’s written, and I’m calling it one of the best reads of this year by far!