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| Anh Do, in his sons' cubby house, is renowned for his upbeat personality but admits he cried while writing parts of his book |
Anh Do's moving account of life as a refugee has become a surprise hit.
WHETHER he's appearing on Thank God You're Here, Dancing with the Stars, Good News Week, or the rugby league Footy Show, Anh Do seems the most relentlessly cheerful of Australia's latest wave of stand-up comedians and TV personalities.
A cheeky smile has been the calling card of the Vietnam-born, Sydney-raised comic and actor who chose a career in stand-up after completing a law degree. But his computer keyboard was, he admits, wet with tears as he worked late into the night writing his memoir, The Happiest Refugee. ''It all came pouring out,'' he says.
If the title sounds almost a contradiction, it's one readers have embraced. The memoir has been a surprise hit, selling out in its first fortnight in September and riding high ever since, in some weeks being the best-selling Australian book. BookScan reports 40,000 copies have been sold and after 10 reprints, publisher Allen & Unwin has 65,000 in print.
This week, three months after its launch, it ranks fourth on BookScan's non-fiction chart behind two versions of Eat, Pray, Love, and Guinness World Records. The Vietnamese refugee story is outselling Stephen Fry, Russell Brand - and John Howard.
''It's just family stories,'' Do explains, but when your family grew up in a repressive communist state and risked their lives to flee in a boat, then the yarns you spin around the barbie when the clan gets together are going to be a little different.
''At Easter the family got together and we were giving one of my uncles a hard time about watching scary films because on the boat leaving Vietnam, when we were attacked by pirates, he wet his pants,'' Do said.
The escape to Australia is a gripping episode, familiar to so many refugees, told beautifully by Do, whose account of the horrors of that life-and-death journey retain a child-like innocence. His family's unfailing sense of humour in the face of that adversity is faithfully reflected in his story's poignant yet funny retelling.
Many who have read the book - family, friends and people who just emailed Do on his website - said they couldn't put it down, they read it in a couple of days or even one sitting.
''Lots of people are emailing me, saying the book made them laugh and it made them cry,'' says Do. ''I've got an email from a bloke who said he loved it, and it's the only book he's ever read.''
Alex Miller, Australian author of books including Lovesong and The Ancestor Game, met Do at the Brisbane Writers Festival.
''The book is like its author, a delight to be with,'' Miller says. Do has, he says ''a brilliant sense of the comic at life's darkest moments. It is the work of a truly gifted storyteller and one of the most enjoyable books I've read this year.''
Do also had a phone call from a bloke who said he was Russell Crowe, saying he got the book yesterday and was up until 3am reading it. ''I thought it was my mate Johnno pulling my leg, but it really was the Gladiator. He said, 'I've just finished it, it's fantastic'.''
Crowe made the book compulsory reading for the players in his Sydney rugby league team, the Rabbitohs.
Do, who lives with wife Suzanne and sons Xavier, Luc and Leon, has appeared in movies including Little Fish with Cate Blanchett, and Footy Legends, which he co-wrote with his director brother Khoa.
Now he's working on a screenplay of his book, and hopes filmmakers will cast him in the key role of his dad.
It would be a fitting epilogue to the theme of reconciliation that bubbles through the book, which opens with him describing a journey down the Hume Highway to Melbourne to meet his father, who had deserted the family in a violent, drunken haze nine years earlier.
As for the comedy circuit, if he's looking for more material Do just has to listen to the yarns told by his family. ''I reckon I'm actually one of the least funny in my family,'' he smiles.
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