I Love the Bones of You: My Father And The Making Of Me

Written by Christopher Eccleston

Narrated by Christopher Eccleston

‘A beautiful book’ Zoë Ball 

‘My father was an “ordinary man”, which of course means he was extraordinary.'

Be it as Nicky Hutchinson in Our Friends In The North, Maurice in The A Word, or his reinvention of Doctor Who, One man, in life and death, has accompanied Christopher Eccleston every step of the way – his father, Ronnie. In I Love the Bones of You, Eccleston unveils a vivid portrait of a relationship that has shaped his entire career trajectory – mirroring and defining his own highs and lows, from stage and screen triumph to breakdown, anorexia and self-doubt.

Eccleston describes how the tightening grip of  dementia on his father slowly blinded him to his son’s existence, forcing a new and final chapter in their connection. Told with trademark honesty and openness, I Love the Bones of You is a celebration of those on whom the spotlight so rarely shines, as told by a man who found his voice in its glare. A love letter to one man, and a paean to many.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio UK
• Release date: Oct 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781471180798

Christopher Eccleston

Salford-born Christopher Eccleston is one of the country’s most highly regarded actors working today. He is the recipient of an Emmy Award and two BAFTA Award nominations, and is best known for his work on television and in film – in particular for his collaborations with directors such as Danny Boyle and Michael Winterbottom and writers Peter Flannery, Jimmy McGovern and Russell T. Davies. He currently stars in the BBC drama The A Word, and was recently seen on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the leading role of Macbeth.

Reviews for I Love the Bones of You

[darthdeverell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In I Love the Bones of You: My Father and the Making of Me, Christopher Eccleston explores his relationship with his father, his working-class background, and his own struggle with mental illness. The book is part memoir, part family history, but he never indulges in gloating and frankly discusses his own feelings of shortcoming and his struggles.Describing his family’s background, Eccleston writes, “Little Hulton had never been a place where people turned one another. In the end, lack of opportunity and austerity in a decade, the ’80s, where others were making an obscene display of their wealth eroded natural working-class pride” (pg. 25-26). He continues, “I’d grown up surrounded by and embedded among the anger of the working classes, not just my father, but in general. Anger was not a rarity in lives like mine; it had a constant existence” (pg. 69). Growing up in such an environment, Eccleston approached acting from a perceived disadvantage. He writes, “My attitude to my body was only emphasized when I encountered acting. In my mind, actors were thin, aesthetes, sensitive, poetic. I thought I looked like a brickie or a farm labourer, and certainly never thought of myself as lacking sensitivity. In effect, I saw myself the way I’d been told the working classes were by the ‘great’ institutions of society. People who physically looked like me and came from my background could not be actors. I really felt the only way I could progress was by physically looking a certain way. My answer to that was to make myself something completely different” (pg. 99). This contributed to a lifetime of mental health struggles. It also informed his choices in film roles. Eccleston writes, “Challenging the institutionally sanctioned smothering of working-class hope has been the driving force of my life. It is very clear to me that my mum and dad were handed a rudimentary education on purpose, kept in their place because they were intended for the factory and/or the cannon” (pg. 193). He chose parts that would reflect the working-class as they are, rather than how the middle-class and wealthy perceived them.Eccleston devotes a large part of his memoir to an examination of gender roles. Describing life in Northern England, he writes, “As happens a lot, and especially in those days, the wife becomes a mother to the husband. Again, a mistake, but that was the social model, particularly for the working classes. This was the heyday of the patriarchy, when there was little or no expectation of equality in the home, but I twigged that our domestic set-up wasn’t right” (pg. 97). He explains how his father struggled to show emotion and how it affected his own emotionality. Even his frank discussion of his mental health challenges expectations for masculinity. Describing his breakdown during his divorce, Eccleston writes, “During that period, I got into a physical, physiological, emotional and psychologically convinced state that, although I wasn’t planning to kill myself, I was going to die” (pg. 128). He reflects on this period, hoping it will help others who are similarly struggling.I Love the Bones of You is a powerful memoir that will hopefully help expose how opportunities for the working-class continue to be limited or, if they were once available, are now closed off again. It will resonate not only with the working-class in England, but also with readers throughout the English-speaking world, including minimum-wage workers struggling to make ends meet in the United States, who are similarly told by those in power that their hopes and dreams don’t matter. Eccleston’s memoir gives voice to how that suffering affects their health, mental and physical. Yes, fans of his film and television roles will find some inside information here, but the book is so much more than that. It demonstrates the continued damage of class and patriarchy in a way that’s accessible to readers of all backgrounds.