Where Shall We Run To: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

From one of our greatest living writers, comes a remarkable memoir of a forgotten England.
'The war went. We sang in the playground, "Bikini lagoon, an atom bombs boom, and two big explosions." Davids father came back from Burma and didnt eat rice. Twiggy taught by reciting The Pied Piper of Hamelin, The Charge of the Light Brigade and the thirteen times table. Twiggy was fat and short and he shouted, and his neck was as wide as his head. He was a bully, though he didnt take any notice of me.

In Where Shall We Run To, Alan Garner remembers his early childhood in the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge: life at the village school as a sissy and a mardy-arse'; pushing his friend Harold into a clump of nettles to test the truth of dock leaves; his father joining the army to guard the family against Hitler; the coming of the Yanks, with their comics and sweets and chewing gum. From one of our greatest living writers, it is a remarkable and evocative memoir of a vanished England.

Reviews

Praise for Where Shall We Run To:

In old age childhood memories become vivid again and its the present that disappears behind a confusion of vivid fragments. In this book, Garner, now old, has faced that pattern and in place of the bewildering, wonky memory of old age, produced something precise and fresh as flowers. He has become as were told we must as a little child. Hes also produced one of the best things hes ever written. Frank Cotterell-Boyce, New Statesman

Its encounters are vivid and immediate, but it is also an examination of class and change in the England of those years. Erica Wagner, Financial Times

Every street, every house, every carved stone, mysterious well, dark pond and perilously steep cliff-edge is remembered and described, as Garner roams through it, with a succession of companions. Garners detailed recall of so many characters and events is extraordinary Sue Gaisford, The Tablet

In this slight but charming memoir about his wartime childhood in Alderley Edge, Garner has pulled off the same trick making the Cheshire landscape feel fresh, while bringing a new perspective to a tried and tested literary form..and Oh, what language Ben Lawrence, Sunday Telegraph

This is a book very much about reading and writing, about the marks that we use to give life meaning, whether they are a tramps chalk-mark on a wall or the comics and Arthur Mees The Childrens Encyclopaedia that allow young Alan to get past block capitals and closer to Real Writing. It is also a book written without a single scrap of hindsight, or rationalisation of the past. This, then, is a writers memoir Brian Morton, Herald

Praise for Alan Garner:

I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration Philip Pullman

Author Bio

Alan Garner was born and still lives in Cheshire, an area which has had a profound effect on his writing and provided the seed of many ideas worked out in his books. His fourth book, The Owl Service' brought Alan Garner to everyone's attention. It won two important literary prizes The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal and was made into a serial by Granada Television. It has established itself as a classic and Alan Garner as a writer of great distinction.