Quite brilliant; beautifully, cleverly observed; funny, heart-breaking. -- Roddy Doyle
Brilliantly written and absolutely hilarious. Hilary is an extraordinary writer and
Hopscotch is destined to become a classic of the form. -- Donal Ryan
The best book I read last year. A heartbreaking story masterfully written. -- Paul Howard
Hilary Fannin carries the reader deep into the mind of a little girl baffled by the world around in her candid, intoxicating memoir . . . a lucid, crystalline and intoxicating style.
Hopscotch tells a private story with candour and exactitude, love and understanding, artfulness and wit. -- Carlo Gebler ―
Irish TimesHopscotch captures the joys, fears and bewilderments of a 1960s Dublin childhood through the wonderful prism of an innocent young girl’s puzzled attempts to navigate the muddy waters of her parents’ world. It is written with a deft sleight of hand that makes it wonderfully funny and moving. -- Dermot Bolger ―
Sunday Independent
--This text refers to the
paperback edition.
HILARY FANNIN is an award-winning playwright and newspaper columnist. Born in Dublin, where she still lives, she was writer in association at the Abbey Theatre in its centenary year. Her plays, including
Mackerel Sky,
Doldrum Bay,
Famished Castle and an adaptation of Racine's
Phaedra, have been performed in Ireland, London, Europe and North America. She writes a weekly column for the
Irish Times and was awarded Irish Columnist of the Year in 2019. Her memoir,
Hopscotch, was published to critical acclaim in 2015.
The Weight of Love is her first novel.
--This text refers to the
paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
In 1966, which is as near to the beginning as beginnings ever are, there is the road we live on, a suburban road, long and straight, semi-detached houses sitting two by two along both sides, each two-storey house dressed in identical brick skirts and pebbledashed cardigans, each twosome knitted together at the seams by black guttering.
Between each house a low garden wall separates two identical front gardens, each with mirrored puddles of grass and a tarmacadam pocket on which to park the family car. Each house is accessorized by a flat-roofed garage at its opposite elbow, a practical addition in which to store mousetraps and paraffin and broken things and tins of baked beans and picnic salmon in case the world ends . . .
‘We will eat the baby beetroot from the garage shelf,’ says my mother. ‘What’s the point in waiting for a war that is already waging?’
--This text refers to the
paperback edition.
Book Description
Poignant, funny memoir of an unconventional family in suburban Dublin, written by
Irish Times columnist.
--This text refers to the
paperback edition.
From the Inside Flap
Hilary is four, not yet five, and she has a mother and a father and an older brother and sisters. She even has a name at home – Billy – that is different from her written-down name. But now that she is in Low Babies in the local convent school, it seems Hilary has something else called responsibilities.
The world is a changing place. Hilary’s parents, themselves products of a country bathed in sanctifying grace, and presided over by leather-strapped Christian Brothers, wimpled nuns, and a strictly ingrained moral code, start to question their own life choices. As she begins to mature, Hilary’s perspective shifts from a confusing mosaic of half-understood conversations, bizarre rules and surreal religious symbolism, to a growing awareness of the eccentricities of the adult world around her, where money is tight, ideas are unorthodox and where living life to the full is the goal.
As her parents’ unconventional lifestyle rubs against the grain of a pervasive Catholic society, the cracks begin to appear: siblings are expelled from school; final demands litter the hallway; and Hilary discovers the truth about the always-present but never-to-be-mentioned golden-haired lady.
Hopscotch is a funny, poignant and beautifully written memoir, a spellbinding meditation on innocence, love and memory itself.
--This text refers to the
paperback edition.
![Hopscotch: A Memoir by [Hilary Fannin]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51GGRbRog4L._SY346_.jpg)
