Trezza Azzopardi's mesmerising debut novel, the Booker-shortlisted The Hiding Place, chronicles the life of a Maltese immigrant family in 1960s Cardiff, Wales, and is a beautifully evocative tale that ignites memories of family, childhood, violence and poverty for one young woman.

Returning to Tiger Bay, Cardiff, for her mother's funeral, Dolores Gauci encounters her sisters for the first time in 30 years after Social Services disbanded them following their father Frankie's abandonment and their mother Mary's attempted suicide. For Dol, aged five when her family is splintered apart, memory is a broken glass pane--a jagged window into the past, permitting only a distorted view and sharp, painful images. Dol remembers the fire, as it licked and then devoured her arm; the rabbit's skin being peeled from flesh,; the self-inflicted scars on her sister's arms; her father's belt cutting into skin.

Sifting through the embers of her childhood, Dol desperately tries to rekindle a flame in her deadened family. Confronting ghosts past and present, she draws a palpable picture of a childhood long-forgotten. Sight, sound, smell and touch caress and burn the reader's senses. Azzopardi questions how Dol, a child at the time, can "remember" and casts into sharp relief the fallibility of the individual's perception of the world--seen from multiple perspectives, there can never be one truth. She revels in disorienting the reader by glimpsing the world from the most unusual, exhilarating angles:

"This is what happens just before I am born: It's 1960. My parents, Frankie and Mary, have five beautiful daughters."

Like an impressionist painter, the author can with just a few simple strokes bring a scene to vibrant life, whether it is the single girls in the bar who leave "the imprints of their bored thighs" remaining "awhile upon the shiny leatherette" or the matchless beauty of the descriptions of Dol's deformity: "a closed white tulip standing in the rain, a church candle with its tears flowing down the bulb of a wrist". Azzopardi's bright flame is sure to burn for a long time to come. --Nicola Perry

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

didn't enjoy it, 14 Aug 2005
took this one for my holiday read, didn't enjoy it - it's quite depressing really. Although well written, the story meandered aimlessly and just took too long to get to the end and wasn't really worth it when you did.

Breathtaking, 19 Mar 2004
I am so impressed with this book that I hardly know where to begin. During page-turning and pin-drop quiet reading I have startled myself by gasping aloud, so touched am I by the skill of this writer, the beauty in her craft.
What more can I say? I simply love this book and will be giving it as a present to anyone I know with a vibrant heart.

"Truth is, as you get older, things get further away", 16 Mar 2004
Memory, suffering and loss are the themes of this rather abstract and densely imagined book by Trezza Azzopardi. I can't say this is one of my favourite books of the year – the story takes a little too long to develop and Azzopardi's method of switching backwards and forwards in time becomes, at times, a little blurred. But the story is still a quite elegant and engaging study of one woman's anguish and torment and of the puzzle of a life at last reclaimed. Narrated in the first person by the seventy-two-year old Winifred – homeless and abused time after time by those she's trusted – she is content to sit on park benches watching the world go by, or read the "free sheets" for furniture she can't afford to buy. She would rather not recall the past, but after a young girl robs her of her suitcase and wig - her only material possessions – she is propelled out of her exile, and forced on a journey to find the thief.The Remember Me is a cerebral venture, a journey of the mind and memory. Winifred must confront her stolen life and her time living as a young girl against the backdrop of the Second World War. In fragments and illusions, she is gradually forced to take stock of how abuse, long obscured have bought her to a dilapidated house on the edge of nowhere. She recalls the upheaval caused by her mentally ill Mother, and her disaffected father; and the betrayal by her strict and domineering grandfather, her embittered, sallow Aunt Ena and the kindness offered by the lodger, Mr. Stadnik. She also recalls Joseph Dodd, her lost and only love, a young man who she meets in the country. As Winifred pieces together her life, she realizes that she is not only searching for a thief, but she is searching for a life that was lived, and at once, irretrievably lost. Remember Me requires a close reading as Azzopardi peppers the narrative with many subtle and understated clues to Winifred's life. The story unfolds slowly and mellifluously as Winifred's identity and her "mistakes" are gradually revealed. Like her Mother, Winifred feels an affinity with the spirit world and is trained to see ghosts –she sees herself in reflection, "the girl looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come" Winifred sees "future ghosts", memories stored on top of one another; she's building a "tower without bells" and later, she will bring them down in an earthquake of her own making. Full of poetic imagery, Remember Me draws a sharp contrast with the dreamlike quality of Winifred's youth and her ambling, wondering and solitary present life. Azzopardi uses short, sharp, yet incredibly descriptive sentences to create a world of reverie and emotion. This is a complex and opaque novel, full of feeling and passion.

Read it more than once, 14 Mar 2004
I read this book largely because I knew it was set in Norwich, which is where I have lived for the past 15 years, which gave it an added interest for me. I had also read and enjoyed The Hiding Place by the same author which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a couple of years ago. Remember me is intricate. When I reached the end, I wanted to read it again straightaway because I knew I had missed some of the subtleties. Like a mystery story, it all really comes together at the end when you have all the bits in place. I realised then that where early in the book I had felt as though I couldn't get hold of a plot, it was because it was written from the disjointed view of a young child who sees the adult world around it through eyes which do not understand what they are seeing. I have yet to read it again, though I will do soon. It is a book that deserves closer and more careful attention. Added advantage? That it is set in a city I love

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

didn't enjoy it, 14 Aug 2005
took this one for my holiday read, didn't enjoy it - it's quite depressing really. Although well written, the story meandered aimlessly and just took too long to get to the end and wasn't really worth it when you did.

Breathtaking, 19 Mar 2004
I am so impressed with this book that I hardly know where to begin. During page-turning and pin-drop quiet reading I have startled myself by gasping aloud, so touched am I by the skill of this writer, the beauty in her craft.
What more can I say? I simply love this book and will be giving it as a present to anyone I know with a vibrant heart.

"Truth is, as you get older, things get further away", 16 Mar 2004
Memory, suffering and loss are the themes of this rather abstract and densely imagined book by Trezza Azzopardi. I can't say this is one of my favourite books of the year – the story takes a little too long to develop and Azzopardi's method of switching backwards and forwards in time becomes, at times, a little blurred. But the story is still a quite elegant and engaging study of one woman's anguish and torment and of the puzzle of a life at last reclaimed. Narrated in the first person by the seventy-two-year old Winifred – homeless and abused time after time by those she's trusted – she is content to sit on park benches watching the world go by, or read the "free sheets" for furniture she can't afford to buy. She would rather not recall the past, but after a young girl robs her of her suitcase and wig - her only material possessions – she is propelled out of her exile, and forced on a journey to find the thief.The Remember Me is a cerebral venture, a journey of the mind and memory. Winifred must confront her stolen life and her time living as a young girl against the backdrop of the Second World War. In fragments and illusions, she is gradually forced to take stock of how abuse, long obscured have bought her to a dilapidated house on the edge of nowhere. She recalls the upheaval caused by her mentally ill Mother, and her disaffected father; and the betrayal by her strict and domineering grandfather, her embittered, sallow Aunt Ena and the kindness offered by the lodger, Mr. Stadnik. She also recalls Joseph Dodd, her lost and only love, a young man who she meets in the country. As Winifred pieces together her life, she realizes that she is not only searching for a thief, but she is searching for a life that was lived, and at once, irretrievably lost. Remember Me requires a close reading as Azzopardi peppers the narrative with many subtle and understated clues to Winifred's life. The story unfolds slowly and mellifluously as Winifred's identity and her "mistakes" are gradually revealed. Like her Mother, Winifred feels an affinity with the spirit world and is trained to see ghosts –she sees herself in reflection, "the girl looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come" Winifred sees "future ghosts", memories stored on top of one another; she's building a "tower without bells" and later, she will bring them down in an earthquake of her own making. Full of poetic imagery, Remember Me draws a sharp contrast with the dreamlike quality of Winifred's youth and her ambling, wondering and solitary present life. Azzopardi uses short, sharp, yet incredibly descriptive sentences to create a world of reverie and emotion. This is a complex and opaque novel, full of feeling and passion.

Read it more than once, 14 Mar 2004
I read this book largely because I knew it was set in Norwich, which is where I have lived for the past 15 years, which gave it an added interest for me. I had also read and enjoyed The Hiding Place by the same author which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a couple of years ago. Remember me is intricate. When I reached the end, I wanted to read it again straightaway because I knew I had missed some of the subtleties. Like a mystery story, it all really comes together at the end when you have all the bits in place. I realised then that where early in the book I had felt as though I couldn't get hold of a plot, it was because it was written from the disjointed view of a young child who sees the adult world around it through eyes which do not understand what they are seeing. I have yet to read it again, though I will do soon. It is a book that deserves closer and more careful attention. Added advantage? That it is set in a city I love

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

Trezza Azzopardi's mesmerising debut novel, the Booker-shortlisted The Hiding Place, chronicles the life of a Maltese immigrant family in 1960s Cardiff, Wales, and is a beautifully evocative tale that ignites memories of family, childhood, violence and poverty for one young woman.

Returning to Tiger Bay, Cardiff, for her mother's funeral, Dolores Gauci encounters her sisters for the first time in 30 years after Social Services disbanded them following their father Frankie's abandonment and their mother Mary's attempted suicide. For Dol, aged five when her family is splintered apart, memory is a broken glass pane--a jagged window into the past, permitting only a distorted view and sharp, painful images. Dol remembers the fire, as it licked and then devoured her arm; the rabbit's skin being peeled from flesh,; the self-inflicted scars on her sister's arms; her father's belt cutting into skin.

Sifting through the embers of her childhood, Dol desperately tries to rekindle a flame in her deadened family. Confronting ghosts past and present, she draws a palpable picture of a childhood long-forgotten. Sight, sound, smell and touch caress and burn the reader's senses. Azzopardi questions how Dol, a child at the time, can "remember" and casts into sharp relief the fallibility of the individual's perception of the world--seen from multiple perspectives, there can never be one truth. She revels in disorienting the reader by glimpsing the world from the most unusual, exhilarating angles:

"This is what happens just before I am born: It's 1960. My parents, Frankie and Mary, have five beautiful daughters."

Like an impressionist painter, the author can with just a few simple strokes bring a scene to vibrant life, whether it is the single girls in the bar who leave "the imprints of their bored thighs" remaining "awhile upon the shiny leatherette" or the matchless beauty of the descriptions of Dol's deformity: "a closed white tulip standing in the rain, a church candle with its tears flowing down the bulb of a wrist". Azzopardi's bright flame is sure to burn for a long time to come. --Nicola Perry

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

didn't enjoy it, 14 Aug 2005
took this one for my holiday read, didn't enjoy it - it's quite depressing really. Although well written, the story meandered aimlessly and just took too long to get to the end and wasn't really worth it when you did.

Breathtaking, 19 Mar 2004
I am so impressed with this book that I hardly know where to begin. During page-turning and pin-drop quiet reading I have startled myself by gasping aloud, so touched am I by the skill of this writer, the beauty in her craft.
What more can I say? I simply love this book and will be giving it as a present to anyone I know with a vibrant heart.

"Truth is, as you get older, things get further away", 16 Mar 2004
Memory, suffering and loss are the themes of this rather abstract and densely imagined book by Trezza Azzopardi. I can't say this is one of my favourite books of the year – the story takes a little too long to develop and Azzopardi's method of switching backwards and forwards in time becomes, at times, a little blurred. But the story is still a quite elegant and engaging study of one woman's anguish and torment and of the puzzle of a life at last reclaimed. Narrated in the first person by the seventy-two-year old Winifred – homeless and abused time after time by those she's trusted – she is content to sit on park benches watching the world go by, or read the "free sheets" for furniture she can't afford to buy. She would rather not recall the past, but after a young girl robs her of her suitcase and wig - her only material possessions – she is propelled out of her exile, and forced on a journey to find the thief.The Remember Me is a cerebral venture, a journey of the mind and memory. Winifred must confront her stolen life and her time living as a young girl against the backdrop of the Second World War. In fragments and illusions, she is gradually forced to take stock of how abuse, long obscured have bought her to a dilapidated house on the edge of nowhere. She recalls the upheaval caused by her mentally ill Mother, and her disaffected father; and the betrayal by her strict and domineering grandfather, her embittered, sallow Aunt Ena and the kindness offered by the lodger, Mr. Stadnik. She also recalls Joseph Dodd, her lost and only love, a young man who she meets in the country. As Winifred pieces together her life, she realizes that she is not only searching for a thief, but she is searching for a life that was lived, and at once, irretrievably lost. Remember Me requires a close reading as Azzopardi peppers the narrative with many subtle and understated clues to Winifred's life. The story unfolds slowly and mellifluously as Winifred's identity and her "mistakes" are gradually revealed. Like her Mother, Winifred feels an affinity with the spirit world and is trained to see ghosts –she sees herself in reflection, "the girl looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come" Winifred sees "future ghosts", memories stored on top of one another; she's building a "tower without bells" and later, she will bring them down in an earthquake of her own making. Full of poetic imagery, Remember Me draws a sharp contrast with the dreamlike quality of Winifred's youth and her ambling, wondering and solitary present life. Azzopardi uses short, sharp, yet incredibly descriptive sentences to create a world of reverie and emotion. This is a complex and opaque novel, full of feeling and passion.

Read it more than once, 14 Mar 2004
I read this book largely because I knew it was set in Norwich, which is where I have lived for the past 15 years, which gave it an added interest for me. I had also read and enjoyed The Hiding Place by the same author which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a couple of years ago. Remember me is intricate. When I reached the end, I wanted to read it again straightaway because I knew I had missed some of the subtleties. Like a mystery story, it all really comes together at the end when you have all the bits in place. I realised then that where early in the book I had felt as though I couldn't get hold of a plot, it was because it was written from the disjointed view of a young child who sees the adult world around it through eyes which do not understand what they are seeing. I have yet to read it again, though I will do soon. It is a book that deserves closer and more careful attention. Added advantage? That it is set in a city I love

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

didn't enjoy it, 14 Aug 2005
took this one for my holiday read, didn't enjoy it - it's quite depressing really. Although well written, the story meandered aimlessly and just took too long to get to the end and wasn't really worth it when you did.

Breathtaking, 19 Mar 2004
I am so impressed with this book that I hardly know where to begin. During page-turning and pin-drop quiet reading I have startled myself by gasping aloud, so touched am I by the skill of this writer, the beauty in her craft.
What more can I say? I simply love this book and will be giving it as a present to anyone I know with a vibrant heart.

"Truth is, as you get older, things get further away", 16 Mar 2004
Memory, suffering and loss are the themes of this rather abstract and densely imagined book by Trezza Azzopardi. I can't say this is one of my favourite books of the year – the story takes a little too long to develop and Azzopardi's method of switching backwards and forwards in time becomes, at times, a little blurred. But the story is still a quite elegant and engaging study of one woman's anguish and torment and of the puzzle of a life at last reclaimed. Narrated in the first person by the seventy-two-year old Winifred – homeless and abused time after time by those she's trusted – she is content to sit on park benches watching the world go by, or read the "free sheets" for furniture she can't afford to buy. She would rather not recall the past, but after a young girl robs her of her suitcase and wig - her only material possessions – she is propelled out of her exile, and forced on a journey to find the thief.The Remember Me is a cerebral venture, a journey of the mind and memory. Winifred must confront her stolen life and her time living as a young girl against the backdrop of the Second World War. In fragments and illusions, she is gradually forced to take stock of how abuse, long obscured have bought her to a dilapidated house on the edge of nowhere. She recalls the upheaval caused by her mentally ill Mother, and her disaffected father; and the betrayal by her strict and domineering grandfather, her embittered, sallow Aunt Ena and the kindness offered by the lodger, Mr. Stadnik. She also recalls Joseph Dodd, her lost and only love, a young man who she meets in the country. As Winifred pieces together her life, she realizes that she is not only searching for a thief, but she is searching for a life that was lived, and at once, irretrievably lost. Remember Me requires a close reading as Azzopardi peppers the narrative with many subtle and understated clues to Winifred's life. The story unfolds slowly and mellifluously as Winifred's identity and her "mistakes" are gradually revealed. Like her Mother, Winifred feels an affinity with the spirit world and is trained to see ghosts –she sees herself in reflection, "the girl looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come" Winifred sees "future ghosts", memories stored on top of one another; she's building a "tower without bells" and later, she will bring them down in an earthquake of her own making. Full of poetic imagery, Remember Me draws a sharp contrast with the dreamlike quality of Winifred's youth and her ambling, wondering and solitary present life. Azzopardi uses short, sharp, yet incredibly descriptive sentences to create a world of reverie and emotion. This is a complex and opaque novel, full of feeling and passion.

Read it more than once, 14 Mar 2004
I read this book largely because I knew it was set in Norwich, which is where I have lived for the past 15 years, which gave it an added interest for me. I had also read and enjoyed The Hiding Place by the same author which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a couple of years ago. Remember me is intricate. When I reached the end, I wanted to read it again straightaway because I knew I had missed some of the subtleties. Like a mystery story, it all really comes together at the end when you have all the bits in place. I realised then that where early in the book I had felt as though I couldn't get hold of a plot, it was because it was written from the disjointed view of a young child who sees the adult world around it through eyes which do not understand what they are seeing. I have yet to read it again, though I will do soon. It is a book that deserves closer and more careful attention. Added advantage? That it is set in a city I love

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

didn't enjoy it, 14 Aug 2005
took this one for my holiday read, didn't enjoy it - it's quite depressing really. Although well written, the story meandered aimlessly and just took too long to get to the end and wasn't really worth it when you did.

Breathtaking, 19 Mar 2004
I am so impressed with this book that I hardly know where to begin. During page-turning and pin-drop quiet reading I have startled myself by gasping aloud, so touched am I by the skill of this writer, the beauty in her craft.
What more can I say? I simply love this book and will be giving it as a present to anyone I know with a vibrant heart.

"Truth is, as you get older, things get further away", 16 Mar 2004
Memory, suffering and loss are the themes of this rather abstract and densely imagined book by Trezza Azzopardi. I can't say this is one of my favourite books of the year – the story takes a little too long to develop and Azzopardi's method of switching backwards and forwards in time becomes, at times, a little blurred. But the story is still a quite elegant and engaging study of one woman's anguish and torment and of the puzzle of a life at last reclaimed. Narrated in the first person by the seventy-two-year old Winifred – homeless and abused time after time by those she's trusted – she is content to sit on park benches watching the world go by, or read the "free sheets" for furniture she can't afford to buy. She would rather not recall the past, but after a young girl robs her of her suitcase and wig - her only material possessions – she is propelled out of her exile, and forced on a journey to find the thief.The Remember Me is a cerebral venture, a journey of the mind and memory. Winifred must confront her stolen life and her time living as a young girl against the backdrop of the Second World War. In fragments and illusions, she is gradually forced to take stock of how abuse, long obscured have bought her to a dilapidated house on the edge of nowhere. She recalls the upheaval caused by her mentally ill Mother, and her disaffected father; and the betrayal by her strict and domineering grandfather, her embittered, sallow Aunt Ena and the kindness offered by the lodger, Mr. Stadnik. She also recalls Joseph Dodd, her lost and only love, a young man who she meets in the country. As Winifred pieces together her life, she realizes that she is not only searching for a thief, but she is searching for a life that was lived, and at once, irretrievably lost. Remember Me requires a close reading as Azzopardi peppers the narrative with many subtle and understated clues to Winifred's life. The story unfolds slowly and mellifluously as Winifred's identity and her "mistakes" are gradually revealed. Like her Mother, Winifred feels an affinity with the spirit world and is trained to see ghosts –she sees herself in reflection, "the girl looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come" Winifred sees "future ghosts", memories stored on top of one another; she's building a "tower without bells" and later, she will bring them down in an earthquake of her own making. Full of poetic imagery, Remember Me draws a sharp contrast with the dreamlike quality of Winifred's youth and her ambling, wondering and solitary present life. Azzopardi uses short, sharp, yet incredibly descriptive sentences to create a world of reverie and emotion. This is a complex and opaque novel, full of feeling and passion.

Read it more than once, 14 Mar 2004
I read this book largely because I knew it was set in Norwich, which is where I have lived for the past 15 years, which gave it an added interest for me. I had also read and enjoyed The Hiding Place by the same author which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a couple of years ago. Remember me is intricate. When I reached the end, I wanted to read it again straightaway because I knew I had missed some of the subtleties. Like a mystery story, it all really comes together at the end when you have all the bits in place. I realised then that where early in the book I had felt as though I couldn't get hold of a plot, it was because it was written from the disjointed view of a young child who sees the adult world around it through eyes which do not understand what they are seeing. I have yet to read it again, though I will do soon. It is a book that deserves closer and more careful attention. Added advantage? That it is set in a city I love

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

didn't enjoy it, 14 Aug 2005
took this one for my holiday read, didn't enjoy it - it's quite depressing really. Although well written, the story meandered aimlessly and just took too long to get to the end and wasn't really worth it when you did.

Breathtaking, 19 Mar 2004
I am so impressed with this book that I hardly know where to begin. During page-turning and pin-drop quiet reading I have startled myself by gasping aloud, so touched am I by the skill of this writer, the beauty in her craft.
What more can I say? I simply love this book and will be giving it as a present to anyone I know with a vibrant heart.

"Truth is, as you get older, things get further away", 16 Mar 2004
Memory, suffering and loss are the themes of this rather abstract and densely imagined book by Trezza Azzopardi. I can't say this is one of my favourite books of the year – the story takes a little too long to develop and Azzopardi's method of switching backwards and forwards in time becomes, at times, a little blurred. But the story is still a quite elegant and engaging study of one woman's anguish and torment and of the puzzle of a life at last reclaimed. Narrated in the first person by the seventy-two-year old Winifred – homeless and abused time after time by those she's trusted – she is content to sit on park benches watching the world go by, or read the "free sheets" for furniture she can't afford to buy. She would rather not recall the past, but after a young girl robs her of her suitcase and wig - her only material possessions – she is propelled out of her exile, and forced on a journey to find the thief.The Remember Me is a cerebral venture, a journey of the mind and memory. Winifred must confront her stolen life and her time living as a young girl against the backdrop of the Second World War. In fragments and illusions, she is gradually forced to take stock of how abuse, long obscured have bought her to a dilapidated house on the edge of nowhere. She recalls the upheaval caused by her mentally ill Mother, and her disaffected father; and the betrayal by her strict and domineering grandfather, her embittered, sallow Aunt Ena and the kindness offered by the lodger, Mr. Stadnik. She also recalls Joseph Dodd, her lost and only love, a young man who she meets in the country. As Winifred pieces together her life, she realizes that she is not only searching for a thief, but she is searching for a life that was lived, and at once, irretrievably lost. Remember Me requires a close reading as Azzopardi peppers the narrative with many subtle and understated clues to Winifred's life. The story unfolds slowly and mellifluously as Winifred's identity and her "mistakes" are gradually revealed. Like her Mother, Winifred feels an affinity with the spirit world and is trained to see ghosts –she sees herself in reflection, "the girl looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come" Winifred sees "future ghosts", memories stored on top of one another; she's building a "tower without bells" and later, she will bring them down in an earthquake of her own making. Full of poetic imagery, Remember Me draws a sharp contrast with the dreamlike quality of Winifred's youth and her ambling, wondering and solitary present life. Azzopardi uses short, sharp, yet incredibly descriptive sentences to create a world of reverie and emotion. This is a complex and opaque novel, full of feeling and passion.

Read it more than once, 14 Mar 2004
I read this book largely because I knew it was set in Norwich, which is where I have lived for the past 15 years, which gave it an added interest for me. I had also read and enjoyed The Hiding Place by the same author which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a couple of years ago. Remember me is intricate. When I reached the end, I wanted to read it again straightaway because I knew I had missed some of the subtleties. Like a mystery story, it all really comes together at the end when you have all the bits in place. I realised then that where early in the book I had felt as though I couldn't get hold of a plot, it was because it was written from the disjointed view of a young child who sees the adult world around it through eyes which do not understand what they are seeing. I have yet to read it again, though I will do soon. It is a book that deserves closer and more careful attention. Added advantage? That it is set in a city I love

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and yet beautifully understated, there is a melancholy cadence to the book that is shot through with black humour. The characterisation is superb, especially given its brevity and, having grown up in this area at the same time as Trezza Azzopardi, I can vouch for the convincingness of the setting - which almost becomes a character in its own right. A wonderful book whose difficult subject matter is lightly-handled and where the beauty of the writing shines through. Once in a House on Fire may well be easier to absorb, as it spells out what Azzopardi sketches with so few strokes, but The Hiding Place will have you thinking about the characters and their lives long after you finish reading.

Sorry but I just dont get it, 19 Aug 2005
What I don't get is what all the hype is about. It just left me cold. Try as I might I couldn't develop an attachment for any of the characters except for the narrator. Book was overwritten, written in a way so you would applaud the style and technique, not what she had to say. This book has been compared to Angela's Ashes but that book clearly is greatly superior to this one. I cared about the characters and could not put it down. This book was tiresome and the 250 pages felt like 100 more than it was. Maybe I missed something but I didnt feel, unlike others on this site, that all of the loose ends had been tied up at all. What happened in the intervening 30 years? Why had there been no contact between the members of the family? What happened to half the characters, did they just fade away? Why did we find out nothing about Dolores character between the age of 5 and 30? So many more unanswered questions. Too much was missing to make it Booker-worthy and though the girls had what seems to be a horrendous upbringing, the writing style put a hazy barrier between the reader and the characters, to the point where I didnt care about them as much as I should, which I realized while I was in the process of reading the story. A laudable attempt but it just didn't engage my emotions at all and at the end I didnt really care that the story had ended. There are so many better books out there. I wouldn't recommend this one.

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

didn't enjoy it, 14 Aug 2005
took this one for my holiday read, didn't enjoy it - it's quite depressing really. Although well written, the story meandered aimlessly and just took too long to get to the end and wasn't really worth it when you did.

Breathtaking, 19 Mar 2004
I am so impressed with this book that I hardly know where to begin. During page-turning and pin-drop quiet reading I have startled myself by gasping aloud, so touched am I by the skill of this writer, the beauty in her craft.
What more can I say? I simply love this book and will be giving it as a present to anyone I know with a vibrant heart.

"Truth is, as you get older, things get further away", 16 Mar 2004
Memory, suffering and loss are the themes of this rather abstract and densely imagined book by Trezza Azzopardi. I can't say this is one of my favourite books of the year – the story takes a little too long to develop and Azzopardi's method of switching backwards and forwards in time becomes, at times, a little blurred. But the story is still a quite elegant and engaging study of one woman's anguish and torment and of the puzzle of a life at last reclaimed. Narrated in the first person by the seventy-two-year old Winifred – homeless and abused time after time by those she's trusted – she is content to sit on park benches watching the world go by, or read the "free sheets" for furniture she can't afford to buy. She would rather not recall the past, but after a young girl robs her of her suitcase and wig - her only material possessions – she is propelled out of her exile, and forced on a journey to find the thief.The Remember Me is a cerebral venture, a journey of the mind and memory. Winifred must confront her stolen life and her time living as a young girl against the backdrop of the Second World War. In fragments and illusions, she is gradually forced to take stock of how abuse, long obscured have bought her to a dilapidated house on the edge of nowhere. She recalls the upheaval caused by her mentally ill Mother, and her disaffected father; and the betrayal by her strict and domineering grandfather, her embittered, sallow Aunt Ena and the kindness offered by the lodger, Mr. Stadnik. She also recalls Joseph Dodd, her lost and only love, a young man who she meets in the country. As Winifred pieces together her life, she realizes that she is not only searching for a thief, but she is searching for a life that was lived, and at once, irretrievably lost. Remember Me requires a close reading as Azzopardi peppers the narrative with many subtle and understated clues to Winifred's life. The story unfolds slowly and mellifluously as Winifred's identity and her "mistakes" are gradually revealed. Like her Mother, Winifred feels an affinity with the spirit world and is trained to see ghosts –she sees herself in reflection, "the girl looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come" Winifred sees "future ghosts", memories stored on top of one another; she's building a "tower without bells" and later, she will bring them down in an earthquake of her own making. Full of poetic imagery, Remember Me draws a sharp contrast with the dreamlike quality of Winifred's youth and her ambling, wondering and solitary present life. Azzopardi uses short, sharp, yet incredibly descriptive sentences to create a world of reverie and emotion. This is a complex and opaque novel, full of feeling and passion.

Read it more than once, 14 Mar 2004
I read this book largely because I knew it was set in Norwich, which is where I have lived for the past 15 years, which gave it an added interest for me. I had also read and enjoyed The Hiding Place by the same author which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize a couple of years ago. Remember me is intricate. When I reached the end, I wanted to read it again straightaway because I knew I had missed some of the subtleties. Like a mystery story, it all really comes together at the end when you have all the bits in place. I realised then that where early in the book I had felt as though I couldn't get hold of a plot, it was because it was written from the disjointed view of a young child who sees the adult world around it through eyes which do not understand what they are seeing. I have yet to read it again, though I will do soon. It is a book that deserves closer and more careful attention. Added advantage? That it is set in a city I love

An average read, 07 Nov 2007
The strengths of this book are in the evocative descriptions of the Welsh coast in Winter and the depth of the characters, but the plot itself was a bit slow and rather predictable.

Anna is in her 30's and unmarried. Her widowed mother lives in Wales where she runs a guest house with the larger than life actor, Vernon Savoy.
Lewis, an only surviving twin, following an accident in their teens, finds himself in the guest house while Anna is visiting and there is an immediate connection. Lewis, however, has unfinished business relating to his brother's death and he carries huge insecurities as a result.

I loved Azzopardi's first novel The Hiding Place, but I did not find this, her third book, while enjoyable, up to the same standard.

Great book and love story, 22 Jul 2007
I picked this up at a Station and could not put it down. It's not even the sort of book I normally read, but the story is superb and I already knew of Winterton from family holidays. The author makes the coastal life out there very real, and the relationships between her characters is compelling. Top marks for a brilliant read. I am going back to her other works next.

A strange but beautiful book, 03 Jul 2008
The first ten pages may baffle you, but persevere: it's worth it. This is a beautifully written book of great sadness, the slow-moving, perhaps, but unstoppable story of a woman recalling a traumatic, even dangerous childhood amidst a population of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff.

Wonderful but sad book, 31 Jul 2007
Trezza Azzopardi was recommended to me by a colleague, this is the first of her books that I've read and I found it a gripping, beautifully-written read. It's a shocking, terribly sad story but there's a redemptive ending. I don't like the current rash of books of memoirs of children with horrific childhoods, but this is something quite different. Having been disappointed with this summer's offering of 'must-reads' (most of which you really don't have to), this book restored me and reminded me how powerful really good writing can be.

Exellent Read, 29 Dec 2006
This is an excellent book, well written, emotional, with a tint of reality. Tezza is a master in character building and narration. However, although many of the characters were supposed to be of Maltese origin, most names and foreign expressions used in the book are, regrettably, not Maltese.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, 05 Apr 2006
This book is an incredible achievement for a first novel, even when you consider that the author studied for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. Highly-evocative and