Kate's Story
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Review
'A truly heartwarming read' (Lancashire Life )
'A fascinating author' (Manchester Evening News )
'A fascinating author' (Manchester Evening News )
Product Description
'Dad, it's the happiest day of my life,' Kate said. 'I wish time would stand still and it could be today forever.' It's June 1897, and Kate is celebrating her eleventh birthday on the day of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Kate's joy is short-lived, as tragedy strikes, threatening her family with the loss of all they hold dear. Before long they are evicted from their home in Ancoats, Manchester, and with no wages coming in and a mother unable to cope, Kate has to grow up fast. Her deepest desire is to keep her brothers and sisters together. A journey of hope and heartache takes Kate from the hardships of the workhouse to the dubious comforts of a position in service to the rich; from the joys of marriage to a good man, to the sorrows and losses suffered during the Great War.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A rollercoaster of emotions for Kate, as her happiness turns to despair though family tragedy and loss of status. The characters are almost Dickensian at times, except that we know that they were very real in the life of Kate and her family.
Kate's resolve and strength of character pull her and her younger siblings through a series of difficulties, and the book had me laughing and crying at times. A truly great read, and a worthy addition to Billy Hopkins' other two titles.
Kate's resolve and strength of character pull her and her younger siblings through a series of difficulties, and the book had me laughing and crying at times. A truly great read, and a worthy addition to Billy Hopkins' other two titles.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I honestly and truly believe this book to be Billy Hopkins' abiding masterpiece. This is not to denigrate his debut novel, OUR KID, in any way - or the rest of that hilarious sequence, culminating in the recently-published WHATEVER NEXT! But whereas the appeal of these other five books is of an immediately accessible kind for all and sundry - and quite rightly and understandably so! - KATE'S STORY is the sort of book (e.g. MRS DALLOWAY, THE GREAT GATSBY, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, THE GRAPES OF WRATH) that could not possibly have been written before its creator had succeeded in cutting his writer's teeth elsewhere. It's so much softer in tone, for one thing, and - given the really serious, vicissitudes of life in fin-de-siecle downtown Manchester UK that must be faced on a daily basis by the narrator and her loved ones (it opens in 1897, for instance, with an 11-year old girl visiting her father's place of work, the cause of his premature and impending death) - its humour too is necessarily of the un-guffawing kind. But there is something else here too - a very particular something that, for me at least, marks KATE'S STORY out as the work of a master storyteller second to none.
John Braine used to say that you can't really call yourself a novelist until you've got three books under your belt. But what I think is worthy of even greater respect is when a male author so contrives things that he tells his tale with the voice of a woman.
Which is what Billy Hopkins does in KATE'S STORY - he adopts the persona of his own mother. And though other authors have contrived a similar technique in the past (e.g. Anthony Burgess with ONE HAND CLAPPING; Charles Portis with his superb TRUE GRIT - another Bill Keeth "must-read"; and David Storey with FLIGHT INTO CAMDEN), Billy Hopkins brings to the narrative of KATE'S STORY such thoroughgoing decency and unwavering sensitivity that, all uncouth - indeed, sham masculinity being set aside to this purpose, womankind as a whole will feel immediately at ease in his presence. Heck! she'll forget her narrator's a man!
And this, to my mind, together with the narrative's location amongst the early twentieth century urban poor,makes KATE'S STORY by Billy Hopkins the most interesting and important social document penned by a writer of fiction since James Plunkett's Dublin-based STRUMPET CITY in the 1970s.
It is surely only lack of imagination coupled to creative paralysis and a perennial aversion to paying the going-rate for good fiction that keeps TV and film producers focused instead upon Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontes.
John Braine used to say that you can't really call yourself a novelist until you've got three books under your belt. But what I think is worthy of even greater respect is when a male author so contrives things that he tells his tale with the voice of a woman.
Which is what Billy Hopkins does in KATE'S STORY - he adopts the persona of his own mother. And though other authors have contrived a similar technique in the past (e.g. Anthony Burgess with ONE HAND CLAPPING; Charles Portis with his superb TRUE GRIT - another Bill Keeth "must-read"; and David Storey with FLIGHT INTO CAMDEN), Billy Hopkins brings to the narrative of KATE'S STORY such thoroughgoing decency and unwavering sensitivity that, all uncouth - indeed, sham masculinity being set aside to this purpose, womankind as a whole will feel immediately at ease in his presence. Heck! she'll forget her narrator's a man!
And this, to my mind, together with the narrative's location amongst the early twentieth century urban poor,makes KATE'S STORY by Billy Hopkins the most interesting and important social document penned by a writer of fiction since James Plunkett's Dublin-based STRUMPET CITY in the 1970s.
It is surely only lack of imagination coupled to creative paralysis and a perennial aversion to paying the going-rate for good fiction that keeps TV and film producers focused instead upon Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontes.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ready Kates story took me to a time we have all forgotten. Billy Hopkins leads the reader into the very heart of the family where we laugh, cry and hope all at the sametime. I couldn't wait to pick up Kates story as soon as I could and when I had finished reading the book felt forefilled within myself. Kate shows a lot of strength yet is so funny that laughter and tears mix together. A must read for anyone who enjoys 'real life'
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
kate,s Story
This is a well written and enjoyable book into our past social history, I am looking forward to further books by this Author Billy Hopkins
Published 20 months ago by Mrs. D. Brierley
Kate's story
We think some people have it bad now ,we've got no idea! But although Kate's story is a tale of unbelievable poverty, it is also heartwarming as Kate, an amazing character fights... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Heather
kate;"s story
Enjoyed kate's story jst as much as Billy Hopkins other books,read all three books twice
Published on 2 April 2010 by Mrs. E. Cobain
A really descriptive book about the lives of our ancestors
I really could not put this book down. It was an easy read so I got through it very quickly. The story illustrates the lifestyles and the difficult times that some of our ancestors... Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2010 by Gail
Billy Hopkins books
This was the second of Billy Hopkins books, an excellent story which once picked up couldn't put down. A story of the Authors mothers childhood of poverty and the workhouse. Read more
Published on 31 Dec 2009 by S. Nixon
MADE ME CRY,SUCH A WELL WRITTEN BOOK
THIS WAS THE LAST BOOK I READ OF BILLY HOPKINS, ITS ABOUT HES MOTHER AND HOW SHE GREW UP IN POVERTY AND MADE A LIFE FOR HERSELF, I LAUGHED, CRIED, SIGHED AT THE STORY, SO WELL... Read more
Published on 11 May 2009 by C. A. Brailsford
30 yrs of struggle.
I enjoyed 'Kate's Story', an easy read set at the turn of the last century.
However, I only gave it 4 stars because the writing style was a bit simplistic and suddenly... Read more
However, I only gave it 4 stars because the writing style was a bit simplistic and suddenly... Read more
Published on 14 April 2007 by DubaiReader
EXCELLENT!
I bought this book 2002 when I was 16 and I didn't really know what to expect. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down! Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2007 by Diane K
SUPERB!
I was advised by a friend to buy this book for my father as it was based in the district he grew up in. And now eight months later i've finally got my hands on it!!! Read more
Published on 27 July 2005 by Shelli Fleming
FANTASTIC AS USUAL
Well ,Billy Hopkins has done it again,another masterpiece,couldnt put it down,absolutely well worth it,excellent
Published on 7 July 2005 by A. Mozdzer
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