Darling, Fesselst Du Schon Mal Die Kinder?: Das Heimliche Tagebuch Der Edna Fry (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
It was quite a shock the day I was on Twitter and discovered that not only was British legend, Stephen Fry, married but his poor wife, Edna, had taken to social media to give followers an insight into the man we all thought we knew. Late in 2010 Edna’s diary was released offering a year of the trials, spam, tribulations and Stephen’s drunkenness that this poor housewife has had to contend with.The diary entries cover almost every day of the year. There are one or two blank dates but there is usually a reason for that. Edna is the mother of Stephen’s five, six or maybe seven children, each one problematic and there is a baby somewhere in the house but Mrs Fry keeps losing it. We learn that Stephen has been both a window cleaner and a taxi driver or at least this is what Edna believes. Stephen is often out for many hours, sometimes days, and often comes home drunk. Mrs Fry looks after the house, the children, has evening classes but the teacher never turns up due to some catastrophe, and even has a go at a book club with some her friends such as Mrs Norton and Mrs Winton. Unbelievable. Graham Norton and Dale Winton have wives tucked away as well. Who would have thought it?Mrs Fry’s Diary is a quick read but a funny one. There are some great one liners in there, some of Edna’s recipes and even her attempts at poetry with a beautiful reworking of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. As the diary progresses Edna begins to wonder about her husband and what he is up to when he leaves the house. What of the man on television her friends keep mentioning, the one that looks like Stephen. Will Edna discover the truth? There’s certainly a lot of scope for future books from Mrs Fry. Mrs Fry’s Diary is an amusing and revealing account about life with Stephen Fry. Everything we believed about him has been overturned with Edna’s diary entries. Although a brief read this is very funny and if you’re a fan of Stephen Fry this is a must. Edna Fry, relentlessly clueless wife of famed actor, intellectual, Twitter god, etc. Stephen Fry, reveals his secret life as a boorish inebriate and karaoke addict in this tell-all diary. Everything from his predilection for sexual role play to the antics of his brood of devil children (at least five of them, possibly more) is covered, between Edna’s own misadventures in foreign lands, cooking, and poetry class. The puns are shameless and the recipes are outrageous, but the premise works better on Twitter than in a book format: things like plot and character development just get in the way.
What do You think about Darling, Fesselst Du Schon Mal Die Kinder?: Das Heimliche Tagebuch Der Edna Fry (2012)?
It was a nice afternoon read. Not the greatest book ever, but certainly amusing.
—Irisarch
Loved this book. Easy to read and laugh out loud funny.
—anulla
