Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens

by Eddie Izzard,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 2017

As though to confirm the claim that comedians use humor to hide their sadness, Eddie Izzard begins his memoir with his mother's death. At age 6, living in Northern Ireland, Eddie shut down emotionally. He did not cry again until he was 19. And he believes he "started performing, and doing all sorts of big, crazy ambitious things" because "at some magical-thinking level," he thought they might bring her back.