Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction
Introduction by Kit de Waal
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My dad was a man - most dads are. But my dad had been taught or was shown or picked up that a man was certain things and a woman was others. He was head of a family - a breadwinner. He should go out to work in the morning and come home at night. He had to discipline children and occasionally do things around the home that required some degree of physical strength. A man did not have to be loving and affectionate. A man had to know everything and never be seen not to understand the world. A man would help around the house only when asked but a man always emptied the bins.
My dad was a man and he did what he thought was expected of him. But he couldn't understand when more was demanded. 'What!' he'd say if he had to take any of us to the dentist. 'Cha,' if expected to wash up. And 'Oh my God!' if my mum ever announced that she would not be in so he'd have to look after us.
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'Humorous and moving, unflinching and without sentiment'
Independent
'Well told, does not dodge complexity and rings true'
The Times
Autorentext
Andrea Levy
Klappentext
The remarkable, emotional debut novel, both funny and moving, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, from the critically aclaimed Andrea Levy, author of the Orange Prize winning SMALL ISLAND and the Man Booker shortlisted THE LONG SONG.
'Better opportunity' - that's why Angela's dad sailed to England from America in 1948 on the Empire Windrush. Six months later her mum joined him in his one room in Earl's Court...
...Twenty years and four children later, Mr Jacob has become seriously ill and starts to move unsteadily through the care of the National Health Service. As Angela, his youngest, tries to help her mother through this ordeal, she finds herself reliving her childhood years, spent on a council estate in Highbury.