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  • Published: 24 October 2023
  • ISBN: 9781804940907
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $39.99

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man

A Memoir




The raw, candid and critically acclaimed autobiography from one of the greatest icons of the 20th Century, now out in paperback

The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon.

In 2008, Paul Newman tasked his best friend with interviewing the people who had shaped his life, in order to create an oral history of it. After hearing and reading what they had to say, Newman dictated his own version. Now, this long-lost memoir will be published. Full of wonderful stories and recollections by his family, friends, and such luminaries as Elia Kazan, Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill and Martin Ritt, this book will surprise and shock readers as it reveals Newman's previously unknown sides.

In this extraordinary memoir, Newman details his fascinating story: from troubled beginnings, marked by fraught relationships with both his mother and father, to the iconic film roles (both good and bad) that cemented his status as a Hollywood icon and heartthrob, and the complicated relationships that were formed along the way.

  • Published: 24 October 2023
  • ISBN: 9781804940907
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $39.99

About the author

Paul Newman

Paul Newman is an Irish-born author, illustrator and art teacher based in Sydney. He has worked in Dublin, London, Hong Kong and Sydney for a variety of clients in advertising, newspapers and magazines such as; Leo Burnett, The South China Morning Post and The Irish Independent. Most recently he has been an editorial illustrator for News Limited working on the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Australian and The Weekend Australian. He teaches observational drawing at Enmore Design Centre.

He is the recipient of three Stanley awards for illustration.

Grandpa's Big Adventure, his first book for children, was shortlisted for the Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards (5 to 8 Years category) and was a Notable Book of the CBCA Book of Year awards.

Also by Paul Newman

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Praise for The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man

Newman at his best...Twice the book one could have dared to hope for, a narrative that is astute, introspective and surprisingly graceful.

Wall Street Journal

Eye-popping...Astonishing naked honesty

Telegraph

A stunning memoir...stuns with brutal honesty...smolders with introspection

Daily Mail

It's never not psychologically fascinating - a compelling insight into how profoundly right Philip Larkin was about the power of bad parents

The Times

Paul Newman is worthy of canonisation

Daily Mail

A shocking posthumous memoir based on Paul Newman's brutally honest lost recordings

Express

Astonishing...only burnishes his reputation. Not because he bangs on about his glorious deeds - in fact he barely mentions them at all - but because this once very private man reveals so much of his fascinating, never disappointing self

Hadley Freeman, Guardian

Beautifully frank and surprisingly powerful

Filmjuice

Painfully honest and full of jaw-dropping revelations

Spectator

This is not your usual Hollywood celebrity memoir...this is an exercise in soul-searching, in public therapy

Mail on Sunday

A candid reflection on life filled with insecurity

iPaper

Paul Newman speaks with a rawness in self-lacerating confession. His voice is that of a man breaking his silence, getting things off his chest. it is spiky and bitter, ironic and sharp, intelligent and unrelentingly self-critical.

Live for Film

A fascinating insight into an icon who never felt comfortable with the Hollywood myth

Stylist

Utterly impossible to put down

Sunday Times - Books of the Year