Ruby Wax: How do you want me?

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Ruby Wax's parents have a lot to answer for. She has never forgiven her father, a man who got rich making sausage casings, for driving her to school in the "Weiner wagon". She has never forgiven her mother for dressing her in dirndl and lederhosen (her Jewish parents escaped from Austria in 1938).

She has never forgiven her mother for being beautiful; or herself for not being beautiful. "She would dress me in outfits to ensure I'd look older than her and uglier."

Wax grew up in a household where rage was the means of communication. "I came from a long line of 'I'm doing this for your own good' terrorists."

Wax thought Mommie Dearest was "a sit-com". Her own mother was crazy for cleaning. If little Ruby ate a cookie, her mother, sponge in hand, "would sit across from me, like a coiled cheetah waiting for a crumb to drop from my lips". For Mother's Day, writes Wax, "I bought her a black sponge for formal wear".

We have heard that joke before. It's one she trotted out on the show pony circuit when she was here promoting her stand-up show two years ago. I guess you only get one set of parents - and only so much mileage.

This is supposed to be an autobiography although it's more like a series of wisecracks loosely linked by more wisecracks. And crack-ups. Wax goes into therapy, so that she doesn't pass on that rage to her own kids.

She did a stint in the "nuthouse". Her parents went senile - although it was hard to tell the difference.

Her mother had for years been squirrelling money away in an Austrian bank. "This was the money the Austrian government had paid her for reparations. I told her how deranged that was. It was like tipping them for gassing her family."

Okay, she asks, "do you want the funny stuff or should I tell you what really happened in my life? I'll give you the funny stuff first then we'll plummet together".

Whether or not you find the funny stuff funny depends on whether or not you find Wax funny. And even if you find her funny, do you want to go into therapy with her?

Wax has always maintained that there was a serious attempt to discover what fame was really about behind those interviews with the famous: O.J. Simpson, Pamela Anderson, Imelda Marcos. Really, as Wax admits here, interviewing the famous was, for Wax, all about reflected glory. "The unpopular, warthog-tusked little girl was now with the most popular person in the world." This autobiography is Wax's attempt to discover why she wanted fame so badly.

That one's easy enough to figure: it's all her parents' fault. "It's a wonder I'm not on heroin," she writes. She's on something even more addictive. It's called the sound of her own voice.

Ebury Press

$34.95

* Michele Hewitson is a Herald feature writer.