Alone

by Pip Granger

The only daughter of alcoholic parents, novelist Pip Granger spent much of her childhood outside looking in.No strangers to the demon booze, her parents were deeply involved in a passionate relationship that rose to exciting highs and plunged to terrible and often frightening lows. Drink explained the series of crises, the furious rows and life-threatening accidents Pip had to contend with, and it also explained why her home life was so very different from that of most other people she knew. Just after her first birthday her family was evicted from their cottage in Sussex for non-payment of rent - a pattern that was to recur throughout her childhood. Home became a place best avoided, and soon Pip was spending time with her ne'er-do-well father in cafes, snooker-halls and other low dives in London's Soho where she made a series of lasting friendships with the unlikeliest of people.Brave, funny, original and totally authentic, Alone is a heartbreaking book about alcohol abuse, parental neglect, and the courage of a little girl to find her own way through a trouble-filled world.

Genres: Memoir

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 18, 2007

About the author

Pip Granger was born in Cuckfield, Sussex, in 1947. Her first job was with the City of Westminster, teaching children who had been excluded from school because of emotional and health problems, and she worked as a literacy and special needs teacher in Stoke Newington and Hackney in the 1970s and 1980s. After quitting teaching, she wrote for a while on non-fiction partworks, including My Garden and My Child.

Pip began to write fiction only in the 1990s. Her older brother, Peter, was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she wanted to memorialise their extraordinary childhood. The resulting book, Not All Tarts are Apple, was the unanimous winner of the first Harry Bowling Prize for London writing in 2000, and was published in 2002. A sequel, The Widow Ginger, was published the following year, and Trouble in Paradise in 2004. No Peace for the Wicked in April 2005.

Alone, a memoir of her extraordinary childhood, appeared in Corgi in June 2007. Her next book, Up West, an ‘emotional history’ of London’s West End in the two decades between VE Day and the birth of Swinging London

Reviews

[alison morton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok but often a little bit boring. I think many of us had a worse childhood.

[Krissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book - the only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't understand what some of the words meant because it was based on a girl from London. So some of the words were a little tricky but other than that it was a good book. It was pretty much about a small girl whose parents were abusive and how she learned to deal with it and overcome it.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book because of the way she wrote the story, she had me giggling to myself some of the words she used to express herself. But she certainly didn't have such a good time of it. Good book.

[Jane Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book due to references to 50s and 60s my era Pip wrote this book of her childhood but I felt she rushed the last part as the rest of book was at a more leisurely pace Just my opinion it is a good book

[Nicola Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

insight to a life back in the 50s, i felt the book had a lot of detail in but a lot could of been left out, a bit slow in parts

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really a 3.5
Should that mean I mark it up or down?!
I enjoyed it but laboured a bit, not really my sort of book.
Life of the 50s was interesting along with the parental relationships. Was it sad or brave or amazing to make something good out or a rocky start. Interesting how the small things when we are small thing affect us for our lives ahead.
Well done to Pip Granger though maybe still suffering alone.