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The memoir from Keith McNally, the British-born restaurateur behind celebrated New York establishments including The Odeon and Balthazar, begins bleakly with its author attempting suicide at his summer house in Martha’s Vineyard in 2018. We then rewind to 20 months earlier when, on a Saturday morning, he took his youngest children to the National Gallery in London. While looking at a painting of Jesus being betrayed by Judas, “I sensed my body beginning to show signs of betraying me: a strange metallic tingling started to pinch my fingertips.” McNally was experiencing the beginnings of a stroke that would leave him with impaired speech and paralysis on one side of his body.
I Regret Almost Everything sees McNally, now 74, reflecting on his health along with his long career, moving from bellboy at the Hilton hotel in London to teen actor – aged 16, he played the lead in a production of The Winslow Boy – to busboy at the New York restaurant One Fifth, where he was later promoted to maître d.
The actor Richard E Grant brings his words to life in an understated yet sensitive narration which conveys McNally’s mourning for his old self and his newfound introspection. As the title makes clear, he has regrets: notably his divorces, being a part-time father to his eldest children and his public shaming of James Corden for his rudeness in one of his restaurants. But he finds delight in film, theatre and in his memories of sitting down with his staff at the Odeon after closing time as they drank beer and counted their tips. Of those late nights, McNally reflects: “Nothing since has ever matched that feeling.”
Available via Simon & Schuster Audio, 10hr 46min
Further listening
He Said She Said
Dr Charlotte Proudman, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 9hr 35min
The award-winning barrister’s account of a career spent defending female victims of male abuse throws light on the workings of the family law courts and the iniquities of a legal system built by men. Read by the author.
Absolutely and Forever
Rose Tremain, Penguin Audio, 5hr 24min
Jane McDowell narrates Tremain’s coming-of-age tale set in the 1950s. It follows the fortunes of Marianne, who, after a brief love affair in her teens, attends a secretarial college in London where she continues to grieve for the boyfriend who left her.
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