Stephen Fry in America - Stephen Fry > Reviews (3)

I’m a big fan of Stephen Fry; if I’m honest I would happily listen to him read through a shopping list such are his comforting dulcet tones. I also have a strong desire to visit America – real America that is, not a few days in Disney land Florida or a quick shopping trip to New York. So when I heard that Fry and America were combining to produce a BBC series in which he gets stuck into the real underbelly of the USA I couldn’t have been more pleased. True to form the series delivered on its promises, Fry visited each and every state of America by way of a London taxi, specially hired for the occasion. Alas, as is common with most television programs the memory fades to be replaced with other, newer experiences. Imagine my delight then, when I received the hard back book to accompany the series as a present not so long ago. Now I had a permanent record of Mr Fry’s exploits to enjoy at leisure. For those who think this is just another travel guide then you simply must think again. Fry avoids a lot of the more obvious and famous locations in favour of real America, and real Americans. Not content with mere sightseeing Fry tries his hand at myriad jobs and tasks, from a lobster fisherman in Maine, to a coal miner in West Virginia. He even partakes in a whaling trip off the coast of Alaska, although he freely admits that he is more than happy that no whale met its end on his watch.

Ben & Jerrys, Pride of Vermont

My personal favourite entry – and there was plenty to choose from - is probably Vermont. Like a man after my own heart Stephen eschews the joys of Maple syrup and the blazing colours of the leaves in autumn in favour of a trip to the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury. His unswerving task of investigating this abode of dairy deliciousness is rewarded when he is given the freedom of the ingredients cupboard and asked to concoct a new ice cream flavour. What follows is somewhat akin to a mad scientist in his laboratory, but after much experimentation and head scratching “Even Stephens” is produced - an amalgam of vanilla ice cream, toffee and walnuts. Happily this type of culinary experience is repeated many times, with food playing a pivotal role as Fry criss-crosses America. Destinations are marked with foods peculiar to the region just as much as buildings or other landmarks. Deep fried turkey enjoyed on a cotton plantation in Georgia to celebrate thanksgiving and Clam chowder and boiled lobster dipped in clarified butter and gobbled down in Maine to name but two culinary treats, both as deliciously described as they undoubtedly are.

Ceremonial Ducks and Cadavers, Just another day in Tennessee

Possibly the state that offers Stephen the biggest contrasts is Tennessee; and to the famous Peabody Hotel we find ourselves for a truly curious spectacle. A selection of ducks live on the hotel roof - not necessarily anything queer about that - save for the fact that at 11am every day a ‘Duck Master’ escorts these quacking inhabitants through the hotel, into the lift and down to the fountain in the reception area where they stay, happily wetting their feet until - at 5pm - the whole precession is reversed with the ducks returning to their rooftop roost for the night.

Such is the spectacle of this occurrence that it draws a crowd from miles around as the waddling birds complete their journey to the tune of John Philip Sousa’s ‘King Cotton’ as a Duck Master looks on (and clears up any errant duck poo deposited en-route).

Twenty-four hours later Stephen can only yearn for such niceties as he visits an innocuous looking area to the rear of a parking lot owned and maintained by the University of Tennessee. This is the Body Farm – an area of woods, grass, buildings and flowerbeds where bodies of the recently deceased are stored, dumped and placed in various situations and in various positions to decompose, and thus provide useful information like timelines and states of rot depending on how or where a body is positioned. There are bodies in bushes, bodies in bags, even bodies in car boots - all rotting away merrily and no doubt proffering vital information to aid crime fighters the length and breadth of America. Those harmless ducks must have seemed a world away to Stephen, and if ever the phrase ‘from the sublime to the ridiculous’ had truer meaning I’d love to hear it.

Stephen Fry In America is part travel guide, part journal, part historical reference book neatly divided into fifty chapters comprising one state each. These chapters are further bundled into groups dependent on their geographical location within America – The Deep South or New England for example. Each states entry is five or six pages in length, and offers a smattering of gloriously coloured photographs as well as a little box proffering the key facts of the area - my favourite of which imparts the identity of the state pie or muffin! And just to make sure attention has been paid there is a little quizette to enjoy at the end testing knowledge of state capitals and the meanings of American words in English.

Nothing other than the full five stars as far as I’m concerned; the book manages to entertain, amuse, educate and titillate with Fry’s own unique humour and outlook on life. The flow of the narrative is rather like being read to by a kindly uncle, and who amongst us wouldn’t enjoy that.