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All Made Up
In the second volume of her memoirs, the prize-winning author Janice Galloway reveals how the child introduced in This Is Not About Me evolved during her teenage years.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published August 22, 2011
6 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
About the author
Janice Galloway
52 books139 followersJanice Galloway was born in Ayrshire in 1955 where she worked as a teacher for ten years. Her first novel, The Trick is to keep Breathing, now widely considered to be a contemporary Scottish classic, was published in 1990. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, Scottish First Book and Aer Lingus Awards, and won the MIND/Allan Lane Book of the Year. The stage adaptation has been performed at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, the Du Maurier Theatre, Toronto and the Royal Court in London. Her second book, Blood, shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, People's Prize and Satire Award, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her second novel, Foreign Parts, won the McVitie's Prize in 1994. That same year, and for all three books, she was recipient of the E M Forster Award, presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her story-collection, Where you find it, was published in 1996, followed by a series of collaborative installation texts for sculptor Anne Bevan, published by the Fruitmarket Gallery as Pipelines in 2000. Her only play, Fall, was performed in Edinburgh and Paris in spring, 1998. She was the recipient of a Creative Scotland Award in 2001.
Monster, Janice's opera by Sally Beamish, exploring the life of Mary Shelley, was world premiered by Scottish Opera in February 2002. Her third novel, Clara, based on the tempestuous life of pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, was published by Cape the same year and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize (Eurasia category) and the SAC Book of the Year, going on to win the Saltire Book of the Year. It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 2003. Boy book see, a small book of "pieces and poems", also appeared in 2002. In 2003, Janice recorded Clara as Scottish RNIB's first audio book.
Rosengarten, Janice's 2003 collaboration with Anne Bevan exploring obstetric implements and the history of birthing, is now part of the premanent collection of the Hunterian Museum, and is also available as a book.
In 2006, Janice won the Robert Louis Stevenson Award to write at Hotel Chevillon in Grez sur Loing, and in 2007, was the first Scottish receipient of the Jura Writer’s Retreat.
Janice has also worked as a writer in residence for four Scottish prisons and was Times Literary Supplement Research Fellow to the British Library in 1999. Her radio work for the BBC has included the two-part series Life as a Man, a major 7-part series entitled Imagined Lives, In Wordsworth's Footsteps and Chopin’s Scottish Swansong.
Monster, Janice's opera by Sally Beamish, exploring the life of Mary Shelley, was world premiered by Scottish Opera in February 2002. Her third novel, Clara, based on the tempestuous life of pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, was published by Cape the same year and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize (Eurasia category) and the SAC Book of the Year, going on to win the Saltire Book of the Year. It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 2003. Boy book see, a small book of "pieces and poems", also appeared in 2002. In 2003, Janice recorded Clara as Scottish RNIB's first audio book.
Rosengarten, Janice's 2003 collaboration with Anne Bevan exploring obstetric implements and the history of birthing, is now part of the premanent collection of the Hunterian Museum, and is also available as a book.
In 2006, Janice won the Robert Louis Stevenson Award to write at Hotel Chevillon in Grez sur Loing, and in 2007, was the first Scottish receipient of the Jura Writer’s Retreat.
Janice has also worked as a writer in residence for four Scottish prisons and was Times Literary Supplement Research Fellow to the British Library in 1999. Her radio work for the BBC has included the two-part series Life as a Man, a major 7-part series entitled Imagined Lives, In Wordsworth's Footsteps and Chopin’s Scottish Swansong.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
February 10, 2012
Original review:
I actively dislike novels about writers’ schooldays, about their early inurement to bullying through their book-munching habits, how reading Virgil at twelve opened them up to a world of bookish intelligence while all the other losers languished in meaningless office drudgery. All this while the great author sits ruminating from his study in Morocco, sipping sherry and having his toes waxed. Now: this isn’t a novel but a memoir, so demurely sidesteps the first charge, commencing to calmly commit all the offences stated in the remaining clauses—Galloway licks up Latin, bites down Bartók, huffs on Homer. All this while her vicious, resentful sister systematically tries to crush her spirits at every turn, and her daft old mother trots out strangleable platitudes from her backward auld peasant mooth. The sequel to This is Not About Me, this book covers Janice’s high school period—periods, boys, motorbikes, classical music and all-out tribal warfare—and the prose has a lyrical, stoical voice that for me failed to mask the heartbreaking bleakness of this adolescence, the grainy old photo of this bygone era: an era best surrendered to historical indifference. If you’re Scottish, give this a bodyswerve.
Additional:
This book left me sullen and moody, with an additional heart-heaviness I can’t quite understand. Here’s a numerical attempt to explicate this feeling. 1) This memoir takes place in a bleak coastal town of Saltcoats in the late 1960s and 1970s. I used to take holidays in a bleak beach area called Blackness (pronounced Black Ness), so perhaps the deeply evoked sense of dreary, empty silence touched me through some embedded recall of this childhood time. 2) I am a sap for nostalgia. I pine for events that happened several days ago, my heart gets heavy about the passing of time and the fleetingness of life. This memoir might simply have tweaked the clitoris of my nostalgia. 3) The world Galloway describes made me lament on how my own teenage years paled in comparison, since we shared working class upbringings (albeit hers in viler circumstances, bleaker times, with far worse people), and she bloomed into a fighting toreador, while I limped along slowly through long days of torpor and social anxiety. 4) I always wish my own past went differently, despite Woody Allen’s epithet about doing the same things over again. I love a regret I can gnaw on for a week. 5) This was simply an extremely powerful book that got under my skin. She should get an Oscar.
I actively dislike novels about writers’ schooldays, about their early inurement to bullying through their book-munching habits, how reading Virgil at twelve opened them up to a world of bookish intelligence while all the other losers languished in meaningless office drudgery. All this while the great author sits ruminating from his study in Morocco, sipping sherry and having his toes waxed. Now: this isn’t a novel but a memoir, so demurely sidesteps the first charge, commencing to calmly commit all the offences stated in the remaining clauses—Galloway licks up Latin, bites down Bartók, huffs on Homer. All this while her vicious, resentful sister systematically tries to crush her spirits at every turn, and her daft old mother trots out strangleable platitudes from her backward auld peasant mooth. The sequel to This is Not About Me, this book covers Janice’s high school period—periods, boys, motorbikes, classical music and all-out tribal warfare—and the prose has a lyrical, stoical voice that for me failed to mask the heartbreaking bleakness of this adolescence, the grainy old photo of this bygone era: an era best surrendered to historical indifference. If you’re Scottish, give this a bodyswerve.
Additional:
This book left me sullen and moody, with an additional heart-heaviness I can’t quite understand. Here’s a numerical attempt to explicate this feeling. 1) This memoir takes place in a bleak coastal town of Saltcoats in the late 1960s and 1970s. I used to take holidays in a bleak beach area called Blackness (pronounced Black Ness), so perhaps the deeply evoked sense of dreary, empty silence touched me through some embedded recall of this childhood time. 2) I am a sap for nostalgia. I pine for events that happened several days ago, my heart gets heavy about the passing of time and the fleetingness of life. This memoir might simply have tweaked the clitoris of my nostalgia. 3) The world Galloway describes made me lament on how my own teenage years paled in comparison, since we shared working class upbringings (albeit hers in viler circumstances, bleaker times, with far worse people), and she bloomed into a fighting toreador, while I limped along slowly through long days of torpor and social anxiety. 4) I always wish my own past went differently, despite Woody Allen’s epithet about doing the same things over again. I love a regret I can gnaw on for a week. 5) This was simply an extremely powerful book that got under my skin. She should get an Oscar.
July 2, 2013
All Made Up is deliberately self conscious. Janice Galloway has written a hybrid book that has hints of conventional biography coupled with memoir and misery lit to provide a beguiling and heartfelt project about her own family and schooldays as a teen coming to terms with her own burgeoning intelligence, 'difference' from her family and her sexuality. Her title is also deliberately provocative- verbatim accounts of childhood conversations with her mother, sister (the deadly and dangerous Cora) and schoolteachers seem inherently unreliable (made-up) despite Galloway referring to a diary and evoking a genuine sense of atmosphere and period. Does it matter that we are not sure what is artifice and what is real? So far, so post-modern. This could read as a pretentious, self indulgent exercise in creative writing- the brilliant introduction with references to Yuri Gagarin smacks of such work. However, Galloway allows herself some longuers,less showy and informative that put pay to worries about self indulgence. There is a genuine story to be told of family secrets and lies. It became compulsive reading for me and provided plenty of rewards- not least what Galloway chose not to talk about or dwell on as well as what was included. There are many rewards in the lyrical writing that is taken so far, but not too far and in the inimitable characters- particularly her mother who becomes the grounding the book needs. Galloway is a talented and sincere writer and I will seek out other books by her in the hope that I can find more treasures like this- a proper book- even if it is all made up!
March 5, 2012
janice galloways 2nd autobio taking her through "high school" times and a bit into university and after. if anything this history is even more ghastly than her little girl history in that her older sister is perhaps even more sadistic to her, and her mother even more out of touch and caught in the middle of a miserable situation of poverty, widow, and 2 daughters that frankly would drive anybody around the bend. galloway's stories are compelling and "natural" seeming, and interesting to see into saltcoats scotland in the 1960's and '70's. brrr, it seems cold and stifling and it's a wonder ANY kids got out alive. the freelove of the sixties wasn't really that liberating as it seems every generation was practicing it, and dealing with the unwanted pregnancies, kids, boyfriends and husbands via guilt, denial, marginalization, and some toughness of spirit akin to basalt or black oak. you can really tell lots of scots have come to usa and settled here over the centuries, as the situation has not changed one bit except in usa we have no health care or housing or education provided by the people :(
April 10, 2018
Brilliant. Honest, gritty and humorous. She gets your admiration.
July 6, 2023
5 stars because it’s beautifully evocative of the time and place and (despite the grimness of the situation) shows humour alongside the tremendous complexity of humanity
September 5, 2020
I absolutely loved this. It's the second part of Galloway's memoirs, covering her adolescence (the previous book, also great but not quite as much fun as this, dealt with her earlier childhood). It helps to have read the first book, to get the full flavour, but it's not essential. The author's childhood was, objectively, pretty grim: not much money, difficult family relationships and little affection, sharing a bed with her mother in a small flat, and sharing that flat with her (much) older sister. Cora is a thoroughly entertaining character on the page, but my god you wouldn't want to live with her: what an utter bitch. Galloway relives it all in a really feisty, funny and imaginative way. More compelling than fiction, and an easy five stars.
November 4, 2011
I was interested in this book as Janice is only a year younger than me and also went to grammar school, so I recognised a lot of her school experience.
I loved the way she writes, though I found the lack of speech marks confusing at times.
The picture she paints of her sister Cora is of a nightmare older sister.Her physical and mental bullying of Janice was appalling.
Her mother wasn't much kinder!
Janice's love of music and her gratitude to some of her teachers was uplifting to read about.
I loved the way she writes, though I found the lack of speech marks confusing at times.
The picture she paints of her sister Cora is of a nightmare older sister.Her physical and mental bullying of Janice was appalling.
Her mother wasn't much kinder!
Janice's love of music and her gratitude to some of her teachers was uplifting to read about.
noway-josé
March 6, 2014Book of the week by the author of The Trick is to Keep Breathing, which seemed to be popular in a rash not so long ago. Neither book speaks to my fields of interest.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 5, 2013
Brilliant!
January 17, 2024
I enjoyed the first part of this 'memoir' so much that I quickly wanted to read the second volume in which we follow Janice into her teenage years where puberty, higher school, boys, music and literature come to see the silent child emerge into a budding adult. The story was beautifully written but also incredibly moving as the prose instantly transported the reader.
I have referenced memoir in inverted commas having just listened to an interview with the author in which she emphasises that while this is her story her memories can never be accurate so there has to be an element of fiction to the narrative.
At the heart of the story remains the family as Janice trys not disappoint her mother but also avoid physical force from her indomitable sister Cora who remains the character that hovers over this story and is incredibly complicated and frightening. There are so many scenes that stand out, but perhaps the confrontation with Janice's aunty's kitty at a family wedding is most memorable.
But this book also reflects on much else with the wonder of an inspirational teacher, to the importance of friendship (although the scene with Jacob at the end is devastating). This is definitely not a misery memoir but an expression of the uniqueness of the individual and how art can inspire a child to escape the expectations of society.
It's a brilliant book, incredibly written, which I will remember for a while, my first 5* of the year.
I have referenced memoir in inverted commas having just listened to an interview with the author in which she emphasises that while this is her story her memories can never be accurate so there has to be an element of fiction to the narrative.
At the heart of the story remains the family as Janice trys not disappoint her mother but also avoid physical force from her indomitable sister Cora who remains the character that hovers over this story and is incredibly complicated and frightening. There are so many scenes that stand out, but perhaps the confrontation with Janice's aunty's kitty at a family wedding is most memorable.
But this book also reflects on much else with the wonder of an inspirational teacher, to the importance of friendship (although the scene with Jacob at the end is devastating). This is definitely not a misery memoir but an expression of the uniqueness of the individual and how art can inspire a child to escape the expectations of society.
It's a brilliant book, incredibly written, which I will remember for a while, my first 5* of the year.
December 31, 2019
4.5 stars. I was perhaps not quite as enchanted by All Made Up as I was by the first volume of Galloway's memoir, This is Not About Me, but only by the teensiest of degrees. Because it dealt with her teen years into adulthood, rather than childhood (the previous volume ends at age 11) it didn't have the same whimsy of the gaze-through-the-eyes-and-mind of a child that the first volume had. That said, it retained the honesty, detail, and gorgeous world building of the first volume. I was totally engrossed, inhabiting Galloway's young adult life with her. It gave me a compelling picture of a cultural moment, especially the emergence of changing roles for women in the 60s, with more freedom opening up (for reproductive and career choice especially) but old attitudes still remaining and battling it out with new ideas and between generations. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read. If I have one criticism is that there's a bit of a leap at the end from young adulthood to mid-30s that felt somewhat jarring, but I see her purpose in it as the events of that section help some of the earlier events of both volumes come back around to a sense of closure. As with the first volume, really enjoyed Galloway's narration on audiobook.
March 23, 2019
Janice Galloway knows how to tell a story and this one (memoir) delivers like a skelp on the heid when you wurnie expectin it. A follow up to This is Not About Me,' (which I loved) , this book didn't disappoint. From starting high school to discovering a love for music and Latin, all while avoiding her rocket of a sister, Janice Galloway doesn't skip a beat. From boys, love, friendship, sex and learning how to live in this world, you'll find it all. Honest, cringeworthy, sad and funny and all written ever so poetically, All Made Up delivers.
January 22, 2022
A touching and accomplished memoir of adolescence with some of the rigours that might be expected of a Scots working-class upbringing. More surprising, a I didn't know much about JG was the passion for music, instilled by an inspiring teacher. Sad that she no longer sings and that writing seems to have taken over from music but essentially there is a happy ending with the singer husband and her son.
November 2, 2016
Beautifully written, but the overall effect was a bit meh. Not sure why, but I'm finding this is happening to me a lot lately, so it's definitely not Galloway's fault. Worth it for the depictions of the difficult sister and the achingly sad ending, giving an insight into how women endure emotional suffering and strive to hold their own in a man's world.
June 17, 2019
I feel bereaved finishing this book. It was just incredible. I’m rubbish with words and probably can’t explain how or why it touched me so much. I read it straight after the first memoir. They don’t have to be read together, it does stand alone. I will carry this book with me most likely for the rest of my life. Thank you Janice Galloway.
July 8, 2024
This brilliant memoir did take a little while to really get going; but once it did, I was completely hooked. Read the whole book in two days, and really loved Galloway's humour, pattering language and moments of raw brutality. She paints family relationships with pin sharp relatability and accuracy; the scenes at the wedding were absolutely excruciating, just superb.
September 6, 2023
The author is just a few years older than me, and her background has some similarities, so there’s a lot I can relate to. It’s a viable indicator of life in the sixties and early seventies for a teenager.
September 28, 2017
It's a good read. You get to look a little into the life of the author and the writing style is good. You get to visualise the scenes and it's a good read if you want to improve your writing skill.
February 26, 2017
Galloway has a way with words. She writes autobiography with the fluidity of good fiction.
January 8, 2023
This is the second of Galloway's memoirs. This covers her teenage years, whereas her first memoir This is Not About Me is, I gather, about her childhood. This is the first of the two I've read, and having done so I don't think you need to read them in order.
I really enjoyed Galloway's writing when I read her novel about mental health - The Trick is to Keep Breathing - last year. I enjoyed this book just as much, where she turns her lens on to her own difficult upbringing. Growing up in a small flat, sharing a bed with her mother after her much older sister has returned home after walking out on her marriage and child. Trying to be a good student and daughter whilst living under the scrutiny and abuse of her sister, teenage Janice becomes more unsure of herself. She finds solace in her love of Latin, reading and playing in the school orchestra, but these passions only seem to further draw out her sister's spite. Her mother provides little protection, and Janice finds herself looking for belonging elsewhere.
This is the sort of memoir that completely drags me in. Honesty with an unflinching introspection, that allows the reader to really understand the starting blocks from which an impressive person has pushed off. There is tough stuff to read in this book, it is very bleak in parts. Some of it resonated quite painfully with me. But it is balanced out with some humour and a writing of real clarity and poise. Plus, Scotland. I devoured this book and can't wait to get to her first memoir to read about what came before.
I really enjoyed Galloway's writing when I read her novel about mental health - The Trick is to Keep Breathing - last year. I enjoyed this book just as much, where she turns her lens on to her own difficult upbringing. Growing up in a small flat, sharing a bed with her mother after her much older sister has returned home after walking out on her marriage and child. Trying to be a good student and daughter whilst living under the scrutiny and abuse of her sister, teenage Janice becomes more unsure of herself. She finds solace in her love of Latin, reading and playing in the school orchestra, but these passions only seem to further draw out her sister's spite. Her mother provides little protection, and Janice finds herself looking for belonging elsewhere.
This is the sort of memoir that completely drags me in. Honesty with an unflinching introspection, that allows the reader to really understand the starting blocks from which an impressive person has pushed off. There is tough stuff to read in this book, it is very bleak in parts. Some of it resonated quite painfully with me. But it is balanced out with some humour and a writing of real clarity and poise. Plus, Scotland. I devoured this book and can't wait to get to her first memoir to read about what came before.
April 14, 2012
This could so easily have been a well-written misery memoir, but I found in it resilience and hope and a tough sort of family love and solidarity (despite the awfulness of the author's much older sister Cora). I related very much to the story of a girl for whom Ardrossan Academy was her way out of he narrow confines of her home and family - and despite Cora's violent outbursts it was what her nearest and dearest wanted for her. As I am of Janice Galloway's generation, I also recognised what she was saying about the emergence of her generation into a new world of choices, especially (even) for women, and her depiction of dragging her more or less bewildered family into this new world I found moving.
I'm wondering why I see resilience and hope where other readers see bleakness and despair. Just call me Pollyanna, I suppose!
http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/201...
I'm wondering why I see resilience and hope where other readers see bleakness and despair. Just call me Pollyanna, I suppose!
http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/201...
December 31, 2012
Janice Galloway has the best book titles. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing, This Is Not About Me and now All Made Up, her second memoir. It picks up where This Is Not About Me left off and follows Janice through her high school days in 1960s/70s Saltcoats (that’s on the west coast of Scotland for those who don’t know. I’ve been there, it’s a fairly typical run-down seaside town). Admittedly I came to this book biased, being a fan of Janice Galloway’s other writing. I hastily snatched it up from the front desk of the library where it was proudly on display as a brand new book (isn’t it lovely being the first person to read a library book and know you’re not going to come across any dubious stains or old bus tickets sandwiched between the pages?), took it home and got stuck straight in.
... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/...]
... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/...]
September 7, 2012
Excellent writing - better read after her first memoir. She has the ability to take you where she is, put yourself exactly in her situation, see and hear the people around her and get inside her head. I really enjoyed this and look forward to reading more of her.
January 15, 2014
I'd thought this was going to be a factual autobiography, although really the clue is in the title! Nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed it and could relate to much of it as someone who was also at secondary school in Scotland in the 70s. The power of Jackie on us teenagers!
July 13, 2012
Decent. It didn't blow me away or anything, but for a fairly straightforward memoir of adolescence, it was engaging enough to finish. Flashes of brilliance, but also a few so-whats.
January 24, 2013
This is a "slow" memoir, and doesn't really pick up til the second half/last third. I stuck with it because of the language: so rich, and different enough from Standard American English.
August 6, 2016
really enjoyed reading about Janice's life growing up in Saltcoats/Ardrossan - definitely not a sugar coated story.
July 1, 2015
Sensational. Beautiful writing. Tremendous insight. The intricate and at times terrifying labyrinth of events that make us who we are.
July 13, 2016
I love Galloway, but this wasn't as gripping as her first volume of autobiography, and I must admit that I took it back to the library before finishing it.
July 15, 2016
Worrrrr. I bloody love a bit of a misery memoir and this trumps the lot. Her style is TO DIE FOR, people. I want to read everything she's ever written. Five big fat stars.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews