Cold Fish Soup

by Adam Farrer

Cold Fish Soup is a series of meditations, often humorous, about life and death in a crumbling, forgotten English seaside town, and how people can find sanctuary and curious tales in the most unexpected places. Before teenager Adam Farrer relocated with his family to Withernsea in 1992, he’d never heard of this isolated, faded seaside town in a down-trodden part of Yorkshire, northern England. The move represented just one thing to Adam, the chance to leave the insecurities of adolescence behind. He could do that anywhere. But he didn’t anticipate how much he’d grow to love the quirks of the town, nor care about its eroding cliffs and declining high street. Cold Fish Soup is an affectionate look at a place and its inhabitants—and the ways in which they can shape and influence someone throughout their life. Drawing on his own experience, Adam shares stories from adolescence to adulthood of reinvention, male mental health and suicide, friendship, interdimensional werewolves, burlesque dancing pensioners, and his compulsion toward the sea. In this personal, insightful, and funny account, Adam explores the power of community and what it means to love and be shaped by a place that is running out of time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Humor, Biography, Audiobook

247 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 2022

About the author

Adam Farrer is an essayist, the Editor of the creative nonfiction journal The Real Story and the Writer in Residence for Peel Park, Salford.

His first book, Cold Fish Soup, a memoir in essays, won the NorthBound Book Award at the 2021 Northern Writers’ Awards. The follow up, Broken Biscuits and Other Male Failures, was published by Harper North in 2025. His writing can be found in numerous publications, including the Guardian, Metro, Test Signal (Dead Ink Books/Bloomsbury, 2021), Hinterland journal (2022), North Country (Saraband, 2022) and Lunate (2023).

He has been a photo lab technician, a kitchen porter, the voice of an automated phone system, an illustrator, a ceramicist, a musician, a music journalist and currently teaches creative nonfiction and memoir writing at the University of Lancaster.

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do like it when somebody sets out to write a book and they lose all control to the book itself, Farrer is commissioned to write about a small Seaside town that is slowly losing it’s battle with the sea and ends up writing a love story about said town, after baring his soul to the reader. The book starts off quite dark, on the edge of a cliff, battling with his insecurities and looking for a reason to not give up…up steps Withernsea, it’s people and an awesome old dog called Millie.

Farrer shares with us the state of his mental health, he takes us through his life trying to understand how he is like he is and all the events that have shaped the man he is. He also shares with us his family, including his adorable mum, the conversations they have are so funny, I was guffawing like an idiot at her defence of gulls and Farrer trying to provoke her into admitting she was wrong. If you have ever seen Jack Whitehall’s travels with my father then you’ll understand the dynamic between the pair of them, it is the sort of relationship you wish you could have with a parent…in fact I demand a TV show with the pair of them. There is a lot of discussion about death (Withernsea seems to get a rather large share) and how it affects those left behind, and these scenes are written with such care that you also feel the loss…but when Farrer’s sense of humour kicks in it feels like the sun breaking through the dark clouds on a typical summer’s day, very uplifting.

Each chapter is set up like a mini essay, Farrer takes a minor event or comment and rolls with it, where it leads is always interesting….Werewolves from another dimension, evil gulls that rob shops, burlesque shows and an army of windmills. Farrer meets some interesting people during his research, from a guy who takes a photo of a pebble every day to an old chap who once ate a gull. Farrer’s love for Withernsea really shows on these pages and I was left wondering when he started this book did he realise how much the place had got under his skin? I really liked the last chapter, an unique and interesting way to do a conclusion, create a virtual museum and decide what you would include that shows what a place means to you.

I’ve seen somebody compare Farrer’s writing to Alan Bennett and I can 100% see that, the wonderful characters and wit feels very much like the lady in the van. I have enjoyed every page, all the lows, all the highs and the many many laughs. Now get on and make me that TV show!

Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2022...

[Jules · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was bought a copy of Cold Fish Soup by a friend who told me I absolutely must read it, but I decided to listen to it on audio instead. And I'm so pleased that I did.

Adam Farrer narrates Cold Fish Soup himself, which, for me, added so much more of an impact to this emotional book. It starts off with Adam stood on the edge of a cliff, ready to step off, which of course, he didn't go through with this as he is very much still here (I very happily met him not so long ago). Suicide and mental illness continues throughout the book, with some very sad pages. As Adam tells us many stories from his life, his voice is soothing and filled with humility.

It is clear that family has huge importance in Adam's life and, given what they have been through, they sound like a support for one another. Unless we're talking about when Adam's mum might get her nipples out on national TV, then the support may wane. I loved this part of the book - Adam's mum sounds hilarious!

Cold Fish Soup is also a love letter to Withernsea, a coastal town in North Yorkshire where Adam's parents chose to locate to. Adam narrates a story of crumbling coastlines, homes lost to the sea, and seagulls nicking your chips.

A book full of both humour and heartbreak, and if you listen on audio, Adam's song might cause a lump in your throat. A brilliantly brave and honest memoir.

[LJ (ljwritesandreviews) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cold Fish Soup is part memoir, part love letter to the small coastal town of Withernsea in Yorkshire.

I don't read much non-fiction, but Cold Fish Soup is exactly the kind of non-fiction I like, where I'm taken on a journey into someone's thoughts and memories, creating a vivid picture of everything happening within the book.

Along the way, we get to know quite a few distinctive, if at times a little eccentric, people that add humour and entertainment to the story. From paranormal investigators to Adam's troubled older brother Robert to his burlesque dancing mother. Even his ancient adopted dog, Millie was given her own spotlight.

I'm from the coast myself and the portrayal of Withernsea in the book reminded me of my own hometown when I was young. Albeit my part of the world is not crumbling into the sea, but it does capture the neglect and despondency that seaside towns, especially in the north, have suffered from over the years.

There is a lot of honesty in this book, especially when it comes to the author's own mental health journey and his thoughts on his older brother Robert's suicide. I appreciated him being so open about these tough subjects.

Cold Fish Soup is a wonderfully written book that will take your emotions on a rollercoaster of a ride from laugh out loud funny, to melancholy and tender and a whole load of other feelings in between.

[Deb Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so good! My bookclub has invited the author to come and talk about it and I’m so looking forward to it. It is really well-written, laugh out loud in places (and that happens less often than I’d like) whilst also being indescribably sad in others.

It is essentially an exploration of Adam’s life from his move to Withernsea as a child and on to the present day. There’s a sadness to what is literally a crumbling town, slowly sliding into the North Sea and it makes a fitting backdrop to him searching for his own identity while surrounded by death and decay. It’s still a joyful book and there are some really funny parts. His Mum sounds like an absolute legend and I’d love to meet her.

Here’s some of my favourite quotes

Adam’s Dad talking about increased violent seagull attacks, even on children: “‘Oh it doesn’t make sense to steal their eyes’, he’d said dismissively, ‘They’re probably just using the eye socket as the quickest path of entry to the brain’”

Adam’s Mum’s views on seagulls are more kindly.
A: “‘Christopher the seagull? That’s what you’re going with?’
M: ‘Yes, Christopher the seagull.’ Her words were made of concrete and steel, no movement at all. ‘I see him all the time. I’ll introduce you. You’d like him’”

And this! This needs to be made.
“The pair of them regularly go on adventures together, driving demons and angry spirits from haunted locations all over the country. Their work is part pest control business and part odd couple buddy movie”

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cold Fish Soup, by Adam Farrer, is a love letter to Withernsea, a small town on the north-east coast that’s seen better days and is quite literally falling into the sea. As well as Withernsea’s landmarks, recent history, and residents of note, he delves into the paranormal, the deceptive allure of the seaside town, his own story, and much more.

If you asked me for just one reason you should read Cold Fish Soup, it would be that it made me laugh a lot. Cold Fish Soup is chock-full of hilarious similes (the title itself is one), metaphors, and anecdotes that had me snorting out loud at regular intervals. Even when Farrer is dealing with heavy topics, there are glimmers of humour that put a smile on your face and highlight the many ways that life and the human condition are ridiculous.

This book is also very relatable, whether you’ve lived in an end-of-the-line (or beyond if, like Withernsea, it got cut off by Dr Beeching in the 1960s) seaside town or not (I have, for the record). Farrer writes at length about trying to use his family’s move to the town when he was 16 to change who he was and make a good impression on new people, having been unpopular and bullied in his previous school in Suffolk. Been there, with the same level of success, starting secondary school and university!

He describes how he made a friend, Alex, and they started a band that was more aesthetic than musical, putting me in mind of when me and my best friend decided to do the same, and subsequently spent an afternoon thinking up a name for it, rather than actually creating any music.

As well as writing movingly about the tragic suicide of his brother Robert, Farrer examines his own experiences of depression and passive suicidality, a recurrent “not actively wanting to die, but not feeling massively attached to being alive either” state that I’m all too familiar with.

Farrer’s writing style and subject matter - intersecting place, people, and the personal - put me in mind of one of my favourite writers, Tom Cox. What’s more, both authors are of similar ages and social backgrounds, have written about music and being in amateur teenage bands in the early 90s, and are very passionate about water and swimming. This is a great thing, as the world (or I, at least) needs more funny, quirky, sincere, amorphous non-fiction like theirs.

Cold Fish Soup is wide-ranging, moving, and brilliantly funny.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this over quite an extended period even though it's a short book, as I was working my way through a big dull sci-fi trilogy and this lent itself perfectly to small sittings, as it consists of a series of essays that whilst related, can easily stand alone.

It left me with a feeling I really know Adam, and wanting to go and poke around the isolated areas around Withernsea east of Hull that most of the book takes part in. He paints wonderfully honest pictures of himself and a big cast of interesting characters including his family, friends and others from the area.

I loved it and I look forward to reading whatever he writes next.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know that this is a book for everyone - there's a lot, really a lot, of suicide and suicidal thoughts in it and a lot of quiet desperation. But it was a book for me. I loved the writing and the construction of the book in essay form. It's stuffed with characters and many layered land and sea scapes - although very weirdly I don't think it ever explicitly talks about the most distinctively Withernsea landmark (plenty about the second most, and a gorgeous essay about the second-best poet). It made me laugh out loud and my heart ache and I am fighting the urge to jump in the car and head there, still smiling, still aching.

[Martin Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book starts in dramatic fashion and unfolds into a beautiful love letter to Withernsea and its surrounding area - the place and its people. Sometimes full of life and laughter and sometimes full of death and despair, this book is like its subject matter and I loved it.

[Caitlin Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

cold fish soup 🙏🏻🫶🏻🍜🐠 this was not a book I would’ve otherwise picked up, but I really enjoyed it! I always have a soft spot for place writing, especially when the writers loves a place is not particularly lovable. I learned a lot about erosion on the Yorkshire coastline and life in decaying coastal North Sea towns! Again, not something it would’ve occurred to me to learn about, and giving voice to this mostly unnoticed corner of England was really great. The voice was endearing and affable, too, though I feel like there was a few context-building chapters in Farer’s life that could’ve been helpful here, especially regarding how he got into writing from be a sculptor (?).
God loves withernsea!!

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll be honest the northern book award attracted my gaze and then i was drawn still further by the ‘blurb’ variously described this as a series of essays featuring observations about Adam’s life, family and living in the unique part of East Yorkshire that is Winchelsea. That might not draw all of you in…so I might phrase it slightly differently..

At the point at which we start this ‘story’ Adam is standing on a cliff, at Winchelsea, reflecting on a recent break up..he is rather too close to that cliff mentally and physically…His wonderful family rally round him, take him and his rescue dog for a rather comical Christmas lunch in a place that serves meals’ large small and medium’ but is currently without one category. His Mother is a burlesque dancer who has appeared on a certain talent show, his sister is part of the dance troop..and they are holding each other tight to this life as Adam’s older brother, Robert, chose to leave it…

This is as big a story as any fiction, it is intimate, funny, sad, life affirming. Adam shares stories of his teens, his quest to be accepted via several attempts at fashions and a rock band, his love of water…his brother Robert..and his Mother’s adventures with burlesque! Not forgetting a gorgeous rescue dog. Interwoven with these reflections is the story of a little place on the East Yorkshire close which is slowly dropping into the sea, where the lighthouse was always redundant - situated as it is in the high street, where the sea is coloured by the unique geology which gives it the appearance of cold fish soup..

The writing is absolutely beautiful, eloquent but grounded, whisking you between coastal scenery and family sitting rooms; between the comic and the tragic. This is a book with the biggest characters and the most incredible setting. If you have spent any time in Yorkshire - and I grew up there - you will recognise so much of this. This is without doubt in my top ten of 2022.

[Melanie Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cold Fish Soup, a memoir in essays by author Adam Farrer, is a love letter to both his hometown Withernsea and to his wild, lovable family. While it focuses on the serious issues of suicide, coastal cliff erosion, poverty and the struggles of mental illness, it’s also touched with humor and hope. There were moments that were heart wrenching but then in the next moment, I was laughing out loud. My favorite parts were the hilarious interactions between Adam and his mother. Through his stories, we can see how his town and community helped him to build the confidence he needed to live in our world.

[Lucy Nichol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about Cold Fish Soup - including the fact that I felt immersed in the North Sea in January without having to actually be immersed in the North Sea in January. This is a tale of family, love, loss, coming of age, mental health and a town that mirrors the ups and downs of life with #nofilter. It gives us a much needed and stark reminder that everything comes to an end one day - so don’t waste time trying to perfect it or gloss it up but instead see and appreciate it for what it is. But it is also truly hilarious. There are aliens and werewolves, aspiring teenage rock bands and even burlesque. The writing has that beautiful simplicity that’s incredibly hard to craft (no wonder this book has won an award!) I just want to take a flask of tea to the Withernsea coast now and hang out with Adam and his beloved dog while his mum convinces us that the seagulls dive bombing our chips are our friends. A perfect read. Highly recommended.

[Katrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed, I cried, I fantasized about moving to a decaying sea town.

[Richard Lakin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Cold Fish Soup in two days.
It’s certainly a memoir but its shifting non-fiction boundaries and categories reflect the rapidly eroding coastline that provides its backdrop.
It reads and feels like a book Adam Farrer had to write.
It’s part travelogue, part local history, part family memoir with lots of observation and description of the changing landscape of the Yorkshire coast.
Disappearing landmarks provide a fascinating hook for me. Most of us take for granted the churches, roads and houses of our neighbourhoods but those living in Withernsea and along the east Yorkshire coast find themselves calculating the rate at which land will be lost to the North Sea.
Roads end abruptly and houses and caravans have spilled over the edge into sloppy, muddy shoreline. In one section of the book Adam interviews a woman living perilously close to the edge as workmen erect a fence warning of the drop. Later, she calls to say the fence has now gone over too ‘making the rate of erosion now faster than I can type.’ The waves get closer to Adam’s family’s house each year.
With climate change these are issues we are increasingly going to have to tackle, yet this coast is already at the sharp end.
Adam captures a lot of the joy and nostalgia and pleasures of seaside towns – fish and chips, piers, windswept walks and the escapism of being out there at the edge of the world. He also deals, of course, with the loneliness, the poverty, the lack of employment and investment and the broken lives including tragedies in his own family.
What shone through for me was the incredible, always shifting landscape and the characters featured in the book. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty that drives people on and I enjoyed reading about Adam’s mother’s burlesque dancing group, his own musical and sartorial adolescent experiments, the poet and pebble collector Dean Wilson (check him out on X), the UFO researchers, Adam’s rescue dog Millie.
The bus shelter at Hull station bears the scrawled message ‘God Hates Withernsea’ but Adam clearly doesn’t. He’s drawn back there.
I really enjoyed this book and would recommend. I look forward to reading more of Adam’s writing.

[Kaylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

i read this upon my boyfriends recommendation and was not disappointed. i was skeptical at first because i don’t usually enjoy non-fiction as much as fiction but this was a great, easy read. some relatable elements and really well written. good descriptors. it is a love story to his hometown.

i did not enjoy reading about the covid stuff personally, i understand that it was a part of his life and worth mentioning perhaps to explains his and emmas story but i just really don’t enjoy reading about covid in literature.

[Donna Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

I came across a tweet by this gentleman and was drawn to his book.

Although the book covers sad times the book is so funny at times. Adam has a way of describing things in such an exquisitely funny way. So clever !

He describes his home town with love and affection , his childhood and now adulthood with some funny tales you can picture .

Well worth a read. I will definitely be popping to Withernsea when I eventually visit Bempton Cliffs

[Alex Pelling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorry, peak fiction much??

Lovely detour from my typical reading into a brilliantly written, down-to-earth look at small town life of all kinds. The best bit is that it doesn't reduce the varied experiences of people living in these small, isolated places, but rather highlights how experience can become richly embedded in them.

Fantastic narrator, modern, enthralling. Love it!

[The Northern Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at a Yorkshire sea side town, held much in the heart of Adam.

Sharing many memories and facts of his time in Withernsea. This is a moving memoir filled with highs and lows, all told with endearing, frank and honest passion.

[Alec · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am OBSESSED with this memoir!
It’s emotional, it’s funny, it’s interesting, even a little educational since I hadn’t known about Withernsea and it’s houses falling into the sea!
If you’ve never read a memoir, this is the right place to start!
Oh and the way it’s written is top noch!

One of my fave lines has to be:

‘One of those people who’s job it is to stand in a kitchen studio, place a forkful of freshly prepared frittata in their mouth and reach as if they’re experiencing the apex of a juddering orgasm’

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was privileged to be one of the first readers of this memoir here in the United States.

Here is a unique and subtle voice for mental health with an amazing comedic lilt. Isn't it said that most comedians have troubles that they try to hide under their humor? Well, here is an author who recognizes this in himself and gives over to the darkness to bring us giggling into the light he has found.

This is a book of essays centered around a small coastal town on the North Sea in Yorkshire, England. Withernsea is not the author's birthplace, but a spot found by his parents when forced to relocate for employment when the author was 16. We are introduced to his family as you accompany Adam trying to reinvent himself from his past life in which he perceived himself to be dull and uninteresting. But then you are welcomed into the folds of his family (wait until you meet his mother!) over the course of stories from the past and near present and you will be surprised to feel very comfortable in their parlor, and will most likely find some of your relatives there as well. Oh, and if you're lucky his wonderful dog Millie will curl up on your feet.

I think it would be surprising to many to realize towns like this still exist today. I felt, while reading, that I was visiting the 1950's or early '60's. We meet some of the town's people and local businesses and oddities. But I think the most compelling character the author describes is Withernsea itself. By weaving the narrative between the physical presence of this town literally on the edge of the sea and the emotional saga of the author and his family I found myself rooting for the success of both. Both are seemingly fragile but inherently strong by necessity.

The humor can have tears running down your cheeks, and then a few pages later you might find yourself crying again in sorrow. Suicide plays a role in this book, an important role, but not necessarily the defining one. Writing is what the author found. Writing about suicide brings the epiphany...we do go on.

This isn't a long book. But I read it slowly over a few days. I guess to tamper the emotional highs and lows. And it was easy to read it like that because each chapter/essay is a stand alone story. I've seen the author on the internet and liked him and his self deprecating personality. I think you'll find that you'd like to be friends with him as well. I'd love to revisit him and his family again. Hopefully he will write another book soon. (Or maybe a BBC show set on the East Coast of Yorkshire as it slips into the Cold Fish Soup...his mother would like that! )

[Sam Dixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Binge read this book in a day. I’m from withernsea and moved here 40 years and the book reflects exactly how I feel about my hometown. It’s received negative press a lot but the community and the characters that live here are outstanding. The book touches on its struggles as a town, the coastal erosion but also discusses the authors own struggles with his mental health not to mention his family dealing with the loss of his brother. I’ve laughed out loud in parts and because from withernsea it was almost a visual play in my head as knew some of the characters he was talking about or places around he has described. Will be buying a few copies for presents. I love his mums humour too. Thank you Adam for this great gem of a book ❤️

[Seb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heartfelt and funny, yet realistic depiction of life in a Northern coastal town, taking life in its entirety with nothing ever feeling cheapened or exploited. A fantastic discussion of difficult topics that brings life into death and community from pain.

An incredibly meaningful and emotional piece that really spoke to me and my experiences, I hope others feel the same way.

P.S. Millie is a star ⭐ x

[NormaN Shaft · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't put this book down once I started it. Adam painted a loveable picture of himself and his family and Withernsea. I found myself wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. It's honest, you just know it is. He takes you on a right old journey (werewolves in Withernsea?), one that you don't want to end.

[Rachel Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is brilliant. As some one who lives locally to the Holderness Coast, I found this book to be a loving and realistic exploration of life in the area. A masterful mix of humour while also covering serious issues, particularly that of Suicide.

I've recommended to lots of people with a connection to the area already.

Really look forward to reading any future work by this author.

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

A kind of personal mythology masquerading as regional reflections. I was alternately bored, alarmed, and interested, and then bored again. There was enough self-abasement and self-critique that one wonders whether the non/fictional impulse was coopted by the use of writing as therapy, which is quite off-putting.

[Drew Gummerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved @AdamJFarrer @SarabandBooks exceptional memoire Cold Fish Soup, about himself (of course) but also his family, his friends, his dog(❤️) and Withernsea, a place I desperately need to go as it’s a place, I never knew, also close to my mum’s heart.

[Lisa O'Hare · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest exploration of a personal relationship with place. How hometowns shape us and pull us back. How families are nuanced and flawed and vital. How life is precarious always, but even more so in a pandemic or climate crisis. A really entertaining relatable read.

[Philip Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read this book in one sitting on the shortest day of the year here in rural Tasmania. Best read I've had in a long time. Author blends humour and pathos effortlessly. He charts the themes of grief and complexities of family life with unflinching honesty and compassion. Highly recommend.

[Tom Woodhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this one. Just has so much life in it.

[Eva Aldea · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the warmest and funniest books on family, mental health and living near the sea I’ve ever read.