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Scottish comedian Janey Godley has written a memoir for Hodder & Stoughton, recounting her life and experience with cancer “with extraordinary humour and courage”.
Publisher Rowena Webb bought world rights from Chris Davis Management for Janey: The Woman That Won’t Shut Up. Publication is scheduled for 9th May 2024 in hardback, e-book and audio.
“Following her diagnosis with cancer in 2021, Janey Godley shares her life and cancer journey with extraordinary humour and courage” the blurb reads. “A determined fighter all her life, Janey shows how her tough Glasgow childhood brought her just the strength she needed to survive as a sweary-mouthed woman in the male-dominated comedy clubs of the 1990s. She needed it again when she brought a case against the uncle who’d abused her as a child. A terrifying ordeal – but she won.
“Janey’s road was a rocky one, but she was at her most popular and with a soaring online following for her hilarious political voiceovers when in 2021 hurtful historic tweets were unearthed. In the eye of the storm, her spirit was nearly broken, but her fanbase stayed strong.”
A major tour followed, but also coincided with the news that Godley had ovarian cancer. Hodder & Stoughton said: “Still in chemo, incredibly Janey planned her new, standing-room-only Not Dead Yet UK tour. Now, facing her fears head on, this memoir shares the tumultuous journey she’s on, continuing to find humour in even the darkest moments."
With cancer treatment ongoing, she has toured again in the UK in 2024. A new film about her life, “Janey”, from Hopscotch Productions premieres at the Glasgow Film Festival on 10th March. The second of her award-nominated BBC Radio 4 series “The C Bomb” – with her daughter Ashley Storrie – returns in March.
Her first memoir Handstands In The Dark was published by Ebury in 2005.
Webb said: “I’m so proud to be publishing Janey’s incredible memoir. Written all the way through her cancer treatment, it will make you laugh and cry, and confirm just why she is so loved.”
Godley said: “From the day we walked out of the pub in the early ’90s to the day I walked into the chemo ward last month, it’s all there, from the stage to the operating theatre, being a failed mum to much talked about comic.”