Jonny Bairstow - A Clear Blue Sky

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good and important book

I thought A Clear Blue Sky was very good in many ways, but I did have some reservations.

The book is as much about Jonny Bairstow's dad David as it is about him, which is not only understandable, it is right and proper.  It is also a fine and important account of the effect of the suicide of a parent on a child and on the rest of the family which will give insight and comfort to a lot of people.  It's a tough, genuinely tragic story, recounted with emotional honesty and without any hint of self-pity  or over-sentimentality.  It is worth reading for this alone, bit there is also some very good stuff about David's character and influence on his son as well as a pretty decent account of Jonny's own progression in cricket.

If you're looking for big revelations about England cricket players or managers, you'll be disappointed.  Personally I wasn't; I thought Jonny's assessments of his fellow players was fair and although he is possibly generous at times I like that he refuses to give salacious or damaging accounts of people but concentrates largely on his own game and attitude to it.  He is honest about many things – like the catastrophic 2013-14 Ashes tour, for example, but doesn't use it to dish dirt or settle scores which makes it a good, very engrossing read.

My only real problem with the book is the prose style, which can be pretty hard to take at times.  The book is ghostwritten by Duncan Hamilton, who is obviously doing a decent job of recounting what Jonny has given him, but the voice is miles away from what I imagine Jonny's own words might be.  For example, Ian Bell at one point is described thus: "He'd sometime hold the final position of a shot, as though posing for a sculptor who was about to start chipping away at some vast block of stone," and Andrew Flintoff's arm around Brett Lee's shoulders was apparently "an act of Corinthian compassion."  And so on. Combined with some pretty stale clichés and contrived similes scattered throughout, it made for slightly tough going some of the time.

Nonetheless, what emerges is a good, honest book which has important things to say.  Jonny Bairstow is a man I'd want in any cricket team; I'm glad to have him on my bookshelves, too.  Recommended.