Trezza Azzopardi

This has been a lesson in reading for me. I attempted to read The Hiding Place in 2010, but chucked it at page 50. I couldn’t get into the story, and I found the writing style odd. I was bored, and despite all the rave reviews, and despite the Booker Prize and Orange Prize nominations, I just couldn’t get interested enough to make more effort. I gave the book away. But the person I gave it to brought it back and told me it was really very good, so I thought I’d better give it one more show more chance.

What a difference a change in mood and frame of mind makes. This time the story and the writing grabbed me right away. Azzopardi uses a complex structure and sophisticated style that demands the reader’s careful attention. But for that reader , the book is highly rewarding.

The main part of the story is set in 1960 in the Maltese immigrant community of Cardiff (who knew there even was one?), and most of the story is narrated by Dolores (Dol), the youngest of six daughters. Her mom was a working class Welsh girl who ran away and then met Dol’s father, who had jumped ship in Wales at the end of WWII. He’s ne’er do well, a gambler, and an all-round nasty individual. Theirs is an extremely dysfunctional family. Dad gambles away the rent money, Dol is disfigured in a house fire, one daughter is given away to settle a debt, one daughter is a pyromaniac, and mom suffers bouts of crippling depression (hmmm, I wonder why!). At age five, Dol’s family disintegrates permanently and she goes into foster care.

Most of the story is told by the now-adult Dol, as she tries to piece together the events of her traumatic early childhood and make sense of the bits of memories. This, of course, makes her a highly unreliable narrator, and I see Azzopardi using this as an experiment in memory. Part of this, and what is key to the novel, is the use of silences—what is not said is usually more important than what actually is said. With each revelation that Dol uncovers, the story shifts a little, building toward a version of what really happened . In the end, some questions are left unanswered, because, well, sometimes life’s like that.

Recommended for: This is a fabulous book for the reader who can pay attention and pick up on the subtleties. Also, you have to be in the mood for this grim world of grinding poverty (I know sometimes I’m not). Despite their bleak lives, Azzopardi treats her characters with dignity. And although the ending isn’t particularly depressing, it’s also not a hopeful feel good story. Because, well, sometimes life’s like that. show less

A first novel with a powerful cast of characters and a compelling structure that makes it almost impossible to stop anywhere. Set in the rough dockside neighborhoods of Cardiff, Wales, in the mid-twentieth century, it's the story of a Maltese family, overwhelmed by circumstances, told primarily from the point of view of the youngest child. It's hard going---grim and gristly at times---with very little of hope or redemption in it. The writing is gorgeous, but I can't really recommend it show more because it's just so bleak. Azzopardi's Remember Me was one of my favorite reads last year. If you want to sample her genius, pick up that one instead. show less

This is not an uplifting read and I would have to wonder if it is based on the authors own life. It has a very authentic ring as it describes the first 5 years in the life of Dolores Gauci, the youngest child of a Welsh mother and Maltese father. This reflects Azzopardi's own ancestry. Father, Frankie, is a gambler and prone to violence, her mother Mary struggles to keep the family of 6 daughters fed and the rent paid, resorting to other means to balance the books.
The story is narrated in show more the voice of Dolores (Dol), as she has returned home for her mother's funeral. The family characters and those of their friends and acquaintances are very well-drawn, as is the underworld of Cardiff in the 1960's.
This debut novel was shortlisted for the ManBooker in 2000. It is a book that left me feeling very reflective. show less

We meet the narrator, who has had many names throughout her life, as an elderly homeless woman determined to live only in the present, but forced by a disturbing assault to remember her own complicated past. Her story unfolds in chapters alternately numbered (one, two, three) and titled ("sticks", "protection", "all-day breakfast"). The numbered chapters take us back in time through the narrator's childhood and gradually on to the present; the titled chapters tell her "now" story. The show more writing is glorious; the narrator sympathetic though surely unreliable; the suspense just intense enough as we experience each new revelation about who Lillian/ Patsy/Beauty/Winnie is and has been. show less