Jon Richardson’s memoir revisits teenage diaries and despair
Jon Richardson has turned his teenage diaries into a memoir that traces how a happy child came to experience deep despair. Written during a period of bereavement, serious illness among people close to him and the breakdown of his marriage, the book uses his past to examine what people carry from childhood into adult life.
The diaries span 1996 to 1999, moving from a Christmas entry celebrating his family to one describing him in tears and wanting to die. Richardson pairs extracts with candid reflections from the present, mixing humour and period details with an unvarnished account of adolescent anxiety. He drew on writers including Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux and psychologist Lucy Foulkes while shaping the book.
- Richardson turns his teenage diaries into a frank memoir.
- Entries chart a shift from family happiness to despair.
- Humour sits alongside an unsweetened account of adolescence.
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Jon Richardson is a British comedian and writer whose work often draws on personal experience. His memoir is built around diaries he kept as a teenager, alongside reflections written as an adult.
The diaries cover the late 1990s, when Richardson was growing up, and show a change from everyday family life to distress and despair. The book connects those teenage experiences with events in his later life, including bereavement and illness among people close to him.
By setting his younger self’s words beside his adult perspective, Richardson explores how childhood experiences can shape people over time. The memoir also sits within a wider tradition of writers using personal records to examine memory and emotional life.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Standup Jon Richardson on turning his dark teenage diaries into a tearjerking memoir: ‘I couldn’t sugarcoat those years’”.