- Published: 3 April 2024
- ISBN: 9781405947275
- Imprint: Michael Joseph
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 400
- RRP: $30.00
The Twat Files
Extract
NASCENT TWATNESS
When I was very young, I was massively influenced by television. And comics.
Two TV shows I really loved were American. The Partridge Family (my first virtual encounter with long-term crush David Cassidy) and Bewitched. Much as I loved the comedy, the music and the stories, it was the leading women who grabbed my attention, namely Laurie Partridge and Samantha Stephens. Not only did they individually have an extraordinary set of particular skills, but they were both stunningly beautiful. I wanted to be like them, so I tried to work out how to borrow some of their allure. What was it about them?
Well, Laurie had the cutest little button nose and tons of freckles, and Samantha had the cutest little button nose that wiggled independently of all the other muscles in her face. Impressive. So, that must be the winning formula– a cute twitchy nose and freckles.
So, that’s what I did. At around age thirteen, I deployed these techniques in the desperate hope of securing some kind of attention from boys. I painted fake freckles on my cheeks and across the bridge of my nose with dots of brown eyeshadow, and I perfected an alarmingly quivery scrunch with my nose that I felt sure was irresistibly ‘cute’. It wasn’t. I looked like a demented rabbit. My friends can testify to this.
Add to that sorry image a rictus grin. I like to blame my darlin’ dead grandmother for my lifelong propensity to show EVERY SINGLE TOOTH IN MY HEAD each time I smile. In an effort, I’m sure, to boost my fragile teenage self-esteem, she told me that I was at my most ‘ansome’ when I smiled with lots of teeth showing. I took her very literally on this and followed her instructions to a ‘T’. I wanted my entire denticulation to be on show. Every last chopper, all gum, tongue and lip should be proudly displayed in a leering grimace worthy of the most rabid of wolves. I can confirm that the heady mixture of demented rabbit and confused wolf was not, repeat NOT, successful in luring boys onto my pubescent rocks. For some inexplicable reason, it emphatically didn’t work. It was an epic fail. In fact, boys actually fled. My smile revulsed them.They ran screaming.
OK, so that mistake was a long time ago. I was young and naïve. You would think I’d learn. Indeed, I no longer crinkle my nose in a rectum-clenching awful attempt at cheesy cuteness. I no longer paint freckles on to my face.
However . . . for some reason I cannot logically understand, I have persisted with the rictus grimace. I can’t seem to stop myself, even if I actively pre-warn myself NOT to do it. Put me anywhere near a camera and bingo – there she blows – the fang-meister general – the queen of snarl – the wholly desperate to-please TWAT! Thanks, Grandma.
The Twat Files Dawn French
A hugely relatable, funny, honest and inspirational 'memoir of sorts' in which Dawn celebrates what it means to be gloriously, messily human
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