BOOK REVIEW - Toast by Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater has written a strikingly honest insight into his young life, and it would seem in the process, casting aside the feelings of his step family in favour of stark truthfulness, something we see very little of in autobiographies of our age. His distinct style which we can see in his other publications (his much loved recipe books) has not been sacrificed when writing Toast, making it clear that when you’re reading anything by Slater, you are reading Slater in his entirety, not a version Slater dumbed down by editing or ghost writers. A fact which endears you to him quicker than you may anticipate.

Slater has written in such a way that you immediately feel as though he is in the room with you, regaling you with the humorous tales of his youth in person. If, like me, you have watched Slater on the TV, you will find it increasingly hard to not hear his voice ringing in your head as you progress through the book. His personality shines through so strongly in the piece that it can become quite hard as a reader to form your own opinions of any given situation.

Toast lays in front of you episodes in Slater’s life in relation to food stuffs/meals which trigger the memories in question. Rather than being in chapters, the book is organised into these food related memories, making it much easier pick up at anytime, read and not feel like you’ve been dropped straight into an in-joke, much like you do with some other autobiographies.  

So controversial was his choice to include his shockingly truthful feelings towards his step mother in the book, that his step sisters have accused him of “cruel lies” about their mother. Whether or not the accusations in the novel regarding his step mothers borderline cruelty and selfishness are truthful or fictitious, what we see is how a young boy viewed the woman whom he regarded to be attempting to take the place of his late, beloved mother.  

His early brushes with homosexuality and sexuality in general, are splashed nonchalantly throughout the book, with a lot of the references to sex coming out of nowhere and becoming quite shocking. Some may find this a little too much for a light hearted autobiography, but the casual references to sexuality through Slater’s young life is just another way he has echoed the innocence of the piece.

Slater has managed to conquer an area of literature which many view as pretentious with great ease, showing us that talking about one’s life purely for others can bring immense enjoyment, for both the reader, and the writer.