Book Review - Nick Frost's Truths, Half Truths and Little White Lies
Published by: Hodder Stoughton
Publication Date: October 8th, 2015
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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Nick Frost's early life was marred by loss. When he was ten his older sister died of an asthma attack. At fifteen his parents lost everything, including their home, and they moved in with the neighbors. His mother took solace in cooking and drinking which might have helped precipitate her stroke. Nick left school in order to help support his family. The times when he found peace as a young man was when he went on kibbutz in Israel. He might have stayed there forever if possible. But family would draw him home and he took up a variety of low paying restaurant gigs to get by. He got through the monotony of his days by filling them with humor. Making his coworkers laugh with impressions and caricatures. And it was at a North London Mexican restaurant where he would meet Simon Pegg and the course of his life would change forever. The fast friendship that formed between Frost and Pegg is legendary. They're still together when the women they were both with when they first met are long gone in the past. They were even roommates who snuggled down in the same bed. But it's the opportunity that Pegg presented Frost that changed everything. Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes née Stevenson were working on a television show for Channel 4. The show about slackers looking for a place in the world, in particular a place to live, is now, rightfully, a cult classic. But more importantly, the twenty-seven year old Frost was introduced to the world of acting and his character of Mike Watt on Spaced isn't just beloved, but was Frost's own creation that he worked on to entertain his coworkers in the various restaurants he worked at. He might never have thought that an acting career would be in his cards, but Frost and Pegg became household names. They went on to make the Cornetto Trilogy with Edgar Wright, who directed Spaced. But the fame, the acclaim, the cult following, most of that is in the future. This book only takes us up to Frost on the brink of fame. He's still ghost hunting with Pegg, he's still having wild parties with mates at their flat. He's still talking about the kibbutz lifestyle. For now, this is the formative years of the legend that is Nick Frost. How's that for a slice of fried gold?
Do you want to learn about Nick Frost's life? Probably pick up another book. Do you want to learn about kibbutzim? Well then, this book is for you. And yes, that is what baffles me most about this book. We get little glimpses of his life with a dark, nihilistic bent, but most of the book is about the peace he found while on various kibbutzim. I'm happy he was able to find a place where he was at peace that wasn't the rapidly approaching grave which he mentions. Often. But, I mean, didn't someone at some point go; "Hey, Nick, why don't you talk more about your friendship with Simon Pegg? You know when you talk about your ghost hunting experiences? That was awesome. And that is what we're looking for more of. Not, you know, another kibbutz." This book literally had only two outlooks on life, we're all going to die, or we will be temporarily saved from the inevitability of the grave by going on kibbutz. Nick Frost's early life was filled with death and loss and he doesn't really talk about how that affected him. We can see that he turned to humor and drugs and alcohol and food as coping mechanisms, but it's more inferred than spoken outright. This isn't a deep dive, this is a morose wade. I wonder what it would be like to be his child. He often talks about this book being the way his child will get to know him because he assumes he'll die young. Well, if you want to be there for your kid, now kids, wouldn't you, I don't know, try to change the habits that could result in an early death? Yeah, sure, there's genetics, but also, might I counter, there are doctors? There are ways to get healthier. I mean, dammit, this book was so fatalistic. He's a comic genius and he downplays how he created the character of Mike Watt on Spaced, but here's the thing, he created this classic character and I would really like to know more about that than his premonitions of an early death. His followup book, A Slice of Fried Gold, looks to be even less about himself, now almost being a cookbook. I just, I just don't know. Is it because he has created so many coping mechanisms that he can't talk about himself or does he just not want to talk about himself? Because, if you don't want to talk about yourself a memoir isn't really what you should be attempting to write.
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