This Is Not About Me - Hardcover

Galloway, Janice

4.15

467 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847080618 ISBN 13: 9781847080615

Publisher: Granta Books, 2008

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When her mother left her alcoholic father and set up home in a tiny attic room above a doctor’s surgery, Janice Galloway quickly learned how to keep quiet and stay out of the way. Her mother hadn’t expected or wanted another child and Galloway wasn’t allowed to forget that she was a burden. Her much older sister Cora, with her steady stream of boyfriends, her showy fashions, and erratic temperament, never failed to remind her of her insignificance. Galloway’s Scottish childhood is defined by the intimate details of her environment, where every family member looms close. With startling precision she remembers scenes of domestic life: her mother’s weekly round of washing, the sodden tweed dripping on the line; Cora putting on layers of make up for the Ayrshire night life; learning to write and control the often rebellious letters; the living quality of her mother’s mangy old fur coat. In these cramped conditions, ignored by her elders, Galloway is a silent observer, carefully and keenly watching the people around her. As her rage grows, she begins to think for herself. Slowly, unexpectedly, she finds her voice. Out of the silent child emerges the girl who will be a writer.

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About the Author:

Janice Galloway’s previous books include the novels The Trick is to Keep Breathing, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award; and Clara which won the 2004 Saltire Book of the Year Award.

Review:

'Sublime prose and fierce honesty set it apart - Part of Galloway's skill in This is Not About Me is how she keeps a child's sense of bewilderment and secret understanding' -Telegraph'Blistering, terrifying, always moving' - Independent on Sunday'Galloway provides sentences blazing with light, a gorgeous draft of terror' Observer'Galloway takes her readers straight back into childhood's wincingly recognisable uncertainties, dislocations and disruptions. She had more of them than most - one of the most moving, yet completely unsentimental, accounts of growing up that you will ever read' - Scotsman'A literary, not a misery, memoir. There is mirth, and a Proustian attention to the sights, sounds and smells of the industrialized coast of Clydeside' - Sunday Times'On reluctantly closing the boards of this unforgettable memoir, the words A"first volumeA" are strangely comforting - a combination of Galloway's power and the fact that the wee girl done good make it so' - Scotland on Sunday'A dazzling book - Galloway is brilliant on the minute detail of childhood perception. She is also brave, funny, resilient and in spite of everything full of emotional generosity' - Daily Mail'A book unlike any other, in which Galloway has captured what it means to start to become yourself' - Guardian

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