Known for her roles in big Broadway shows, Sutton Foster picks up the pen to tell us about the real woman behind the well-known characters.
★★★★
Sutton Foster is a star of stage and screen, most recently seen in the UK selling out the Barbican in Anything Goes, and currently singing and dancing in The Music Man on Broadway. Her career took off when she was suddenly propelled, 42nd-Street-style, from understudy to leading lady in the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. But her book isn't about any of that. Well, it is, but indirectly. Instead, Foster focuses on the hobbies that kept her going through bullying from castmates, the ups and downs of her career and her struggles with infertility.
The book is structured roughly chronologically, but some parts (such as the Patti LuPone chapter) skip backwards and forwards in time. This occasionally makes the timeline confusing, but overall the structure works to tell her story with maximum emotional impact. The reason for this structure is that each chapter is based around a craft or hobby that Foster links to a point in her life or an aspect of her journey. This is such an original idea, and it is executed brilliantly. The recipes, patterns, instructions and pictures of her beautiful crafts make this book much more than a memoir; it becomes an inspiration for the reader to have a go at crafting themselves.
This book is very readable and witty, but doesn't shy away from the darker chapters of Foster's life, dealing with complex family relationships, an unwelcomely publicised divorce and her difficult journey to motherhood. Foster's complicated relationship with her mother, who had undiagnosed agoraphobia that eventually kept her housebound, is the main focus of the book. Foster deals sensitively and carefully with her mother's mental illness and her own process of coming to terms with it. I'm sure this book will be very helpful to others dealing with a similar situation.
Foster collaborated with writer and journalist Liz Welch on the book, acknowledging that Welch "helped [her] find and follow [her] story and encouraged [her] to dig deeper". The result is an engaging, well-written book that retains Foster's sincerity and her trademark mischievous charm.
This book is a must-read for Sutton Foster fans, musical theatre fans or anybody who loves crafting! However, I am sure the book would still be very readable if you don't have much of an interest in either showbiz or crafts, as she deals with many universal issues. And even if you've never come across Sutton Foster before, you are sure to be won over by her charm, determination and goofy sense of humour. You will most likely end up looking for tickets to see her as soon as possible!
Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life is out now in hardback and paperback.