From her earliest years with a boozy, accident-prone father and a reluctantly pragmatic mother Janice Galloway's grew up as a watcher - careful and vigilant. Then her parents' marriage broke up and mother and daughter moved to an attic above a doctor's surgery. When her big sister Cora returned home, with her steady stream of boyfriends, snappy dress sense and matching temper, evasion became a way of life. This is a funny and telling book about the routine dependencies and confusions, hopes and triumphs of childhood: it is also a book about emergence, as slowly, the beginnings of unsuspected rage that pushed the silent girl towards her voice.
This Is Not About Me
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'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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'The writing, like all of her writing, is pared down, chisel-perfect'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This wonderful book has all the emotional and intellectual impact of Galloway's award-winning fiction. Somewhere between novel and traditional memoir, she breaks new ground in writing a brave, forceful, funny and searingly honest book that is a far removed from the so-called "misery memoir". "This is not about me" is exactly that - not about one person but about how we are all are made by those around us. She writes directly from the child's point of view, sharp and clear, in rainbow colours. The characters of her mother and unhappy sister, Cora, in particular are wonderful portraits, clear-eyed and without any trace of self-pity, judgement or rancour. Music, a love of words and learning, compassion for everyday life is here writ large. "A book unlike any other" wrote Lavinina Greenlaw in the Guardian - and that's exactly what it is.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By oldspottycat
Format:Hardcover
I was blown away by this book. `This is Not About Me' may be based on her own experiences of growing up in the 1950s and 60s in Saltcoats, but in its sharply drawn, vividly realised evocation of childhood, Janice Galloway transcends time and space. I found myself reliving my own experience of growing up, as sights, sounds and sensations long forgotten came flooding back.
`This is Not About Me' is dark, certainly; it is also full of the excitement and wonder of growing up, as well as the pain and confusion. As the child gradually begins to confront the reality of what is going on around her, and to develop her own separate identity, the book reaches an oddly exultant conclusion.
If you want to read a book which will draw you in from page 1, and which will remain with you long after you have finished it, go for this one. I ordered three copies for friends for Christmas and am about to order more to send to friends overseas.
`This is Not About Me' is dark, certainly; it is also full of the excitement and wonder of growing up, as well as the pain and confusion. As the child gradually begins to confront the reality of what is going on around her, and to develop her own separate identity, the book reaches an oddly exultant conclusion.
If you want to read a book which will draw you in from page 1, and which will remain with you long after you have finished it, go for this one. I ordered three copies for friends for Christmas and am about to order more to send to friends overseas.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Janice Galloway is one of the best writers I have read and to be allowed insight into her life in this way is a privilege. Her powers of description are superb and Saltcoats and the fifties and sixties come alive in this memoir. It is a brave, honest book and I want to read more (I hope I'm right in thinking that there is more to come).
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sad and funny
being the same age as Janice Galloway I could remember and relate to many of her memories of the times
Published 28 days ago by Ms. Susan J. Cooper
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic writer on fine form.
This Is Not About Me is a joy to read. Throughout there is a sense that something bad is going to happen. It never does. Everything remains normal. Life goes on. Read more
Published 1 month ago by amanda
1.0 out of 5 stars
Oh dear
This book lost me on page three! Good job I didn't pay much for it. I enjoy biographies but this one lacked all charm.
Published 2 months ago by Snue
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jane Galloway, I love you
This is a jolly good read. It is well written, and laugh out loud too. A sympathetic account of growing up in Saltcoats, and triumphing over that and other considerable... Read more
Published 2 months ago by sophia
5.0 out of 5 stars
Playing the hand of cards you have been dealt
I am a sucker for autobiographical books about childhood, because it is a time of such fluidity of response, and I am always captivated when a writer can distil the stuff of their... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Lady Fancifull
3.0 out of 5 stars
This is not about me
I've rated this 3 stars as there were parts that I really enjoyed, but also parts that I didn't find interesting at all. Read more
Published 4 months ago by cross-chrissy
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is not about me
Quite shocking in parts. I had no idea that life was so tough for a child born 10 years after me in an area I would have assumed looked after its own. Read more
Published 5 months ago by margaretdavy
3.0 out of 5 stars
disconcerting
I enjoyed this book but I bought it after hearing the author talk on Radio 4. She sounded fun and sparky so I didn't expect the book to be so off kilter and unusual. Read more
Published 10 months ago by happypenguin
3.0 out of 5 stars
This was about her!
It was certainly a page turner but I just wanted something to happen and was waiting for just that. Was very disappointed when nothing did happen and felt I had wasted my time... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Lynne
4.0 out of 5 stars
This is how it was
The hardback edition starts with an explanation of the intriguing photograph on the front cover. Drawing us in from the beginning, this clear-eyed, unselfpitying account of a... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Clive A. H. Still
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