9th July 2005
JANEY GODLEY
by William Cook
If the school of hard knocks handed out degrees, Janey Godley would have a PhD by now: sexually abused as a child, she grew up surrounded by alcoholics and heroin addicts, yet somehow she survived. Her new autobiography Handstands in the Dark is a harrowing memoir of life in Glasgow's East End. Rather than a bleak cautionary tale, her story is exhilarating, uplifting and often extremely funny. Ultimately it's a testament to the extraordinary endurance of the human spirit. Godley finds irony and absurdity in the most godforsaken situations, yet unlike a lot of comics she's brave and honest enough to reveal her innermost emotions and it's this raw sincerity that gives her streetwise revelations such savage bite. |