O'FARRELL, John

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Doubleday/Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Independent, London, England, columnist; Guardian London, columnist. Joke writer for Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Named Best Columnist of the Year, British Liars' Awards.

WRITINGS:

Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, 1979-1997, Doubleday (London, England), 1998.

The Best a Man Can Get: A Novel of Fatherhood and Its Discontents, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Global Village Idiot: Dubya, Dumb Jokes, and One Last Word before You Vote, Doubleday (London, England), 2001, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2003.

This Is Your Life (novel), Doubleday (London, England), 2002, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2004.

I Blame the Scapegoats: Guardian Columns: The Final Sequel, Doubleday (London, England), 2003.

Writer for television comedies, including Spitting Image and Have I Got News for You; cowriter of script for film Chicken Run.

SIDELIGHTS:

John O'Farrell's left-of-center columns in the London Guardian skewer British and world politics on a weekly basis. In addition, he writes television comedy and the occasional joke for Prime Minister Tony Blair. His first book, Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, 1979-1997, is a memoir, and The Best a Man Can Get: A Novel of Fatherhood and Its Discontents is the story of a husband and father who leads a double life. In this tale, Mike Adams dreams of being a rock star, but at age thirty-two he is only managing to write commercial jingles to support his growing family. He decides that in order to keep his sanity he is going live at home on weekends and in an apartment during the week to give him time off from his two children and wife, Catherine, who is pregnant with their third. He moves in with college student Jim, shy Paul, and porn collector Simon, but Catherine thinks that he is really renting a music studio so he can compose music.

Living like a bachelor, Mike quickly slides into the singles routine of carousing, beer drinking, sleeping late, and being tempted by young women. But mainly he feels like a man having an affair "with a younger version of myself." Meanwhile, he is not accomplishing anything in the way of work close to what Catherine had in mind. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "as the dark shadows of divorce, financial ruin, and creative failure stalk Mike, O'Farrell succeeds in creating a hit single for the Nick Hornby crowd." Booklist writer Kristine Huntley felt that although O'Farrell's story is filled with "side-splitting quips," he "at the same time deals with the fear of fatherhood and growing up for good."

Two years after O'Farrell's collection of Guardian columns, Global Village Idiot: Dubya, Dumb Jokes, and One Last Word before You Vote, was published for British readers, he released an Americanized version. The cover shows President George W. Bush wearing a dunce cap. O'Farrell targets Bush and such unrelated topics as McDonald's, the war on terrorism, fox hunting, in-vitro fertilization, and boxing. For example, O'Farrell writes, "Mike Tyson remains a role model for thousands. Where I live in South London, far more young working class men have named their pet Rottweillers 'Tyson' than say, 'Chomsky.'" A Publishers Weekly critic who called O'Farrell "the UK's answer to Dave Barry," noted that the satirist "doesn't deal in idle whimsy. He unleashes devilish darts across the full sociopolitical landscape." The writer felt that O'Farrell's humor would be best appreciated by left-leaning readers.

A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that O'Farrell "brings his very British brand of self-flagellating humor" to This Is Your Life, a novel that is "a scathing satire of celebrity culture and the numbing effects of fame." The protagonist is talentless Jimmy Conway, a thirty-five year old who spends his time teaching English as a second language in a small seaside town, while also occasionally working on a screenplay. In anticipation of a successful life, as a teen Jimmy wrote letters to his older self, letters filled with dreams that never came to be. Because of an earlier chance encounter with Billy Scrivens, England's most famous comedian at the time, Jimmy is able to get an invitation to the star's funeral. One of the reporters who is covering the funeral assumes that Jimmy is a stand-up comic, and Jimmy goes along with the gag, saying that he only plays unannounced at small clubs and wants no publicity. Of course, this is exactly what thrusts him into the limelight. Members of the media, unwilling to admit that they have never heard of Jimmy, perpetuate and expand on his reputation.

A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that "there are enough brilliant comic monologues to keep the pages flipping right by," and called This Is Your Life "a mordant update of the Emperor's New Clothes that's often deeper than it thinks it is." Library Journal critic Bob Lunn said O'Farrell "keeps the jokes coming in this thoroughly engaging and quick read." And in a review of This Is Your Life, People writer Kyle Smith called O'Farrell "one of the funniest things in Britain."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

O'Farrell, John, Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, 1979-1997, Doubleday (London, England), 1998.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 2001, Kristine Huntley, review of The Best a Man Can Get: A Novel of Fatherhood and Its Discontents, p. 1983.

Entertainment Weekly, May 28, 2004, Emily Mead, review of This Is Your Life, p. 135.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2004, review of This Is Your Life, p. 150.

Library Journal, April 15, 2004, Bob Lunn, review of This Is Your Life, p. 125.

New Statesman, December 9, 2002, Sean Matthews, review of This Is Your Life, p. 52.

People, May 17, 2004, Kyle Smith, review of This Is Your Life, p. 52.

Publishers Weekly, June 18, 2001, review of The Best a Man Can Get, p. 59; January 26, 2004, review of Global Village Idiot: Dubya, Dumb Jokes, and One Last Word before You Vote, p. 245; April 12, 2004, review of This Is Your Life, p. 40.

Spectator, December 7, 2002, Alan Wall, review of This Is Your Life, p. 44.*