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The Hiding Place
This brilliant first novel is set in the Maltese community of Tiger Bay in Cardiff where the author grew up. Dolores, the narrator, tells the story of her childhood - her father, Frankie, a compulsive gambler who, due to a misunderstanding at the moment of her birth (he is convinced that his wife will finally give birth to a boy after a multitude of daughters) loses everything to his rival Joe Medora, head of the Maltese Mafia. The author evokes the world of Dolores and her family with brilliant power and sensitivity, as the novel flits between past and present where Dolores reflects on her childhood and the lives that her father created for himself and his children.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2000
31 people are currently reading
1846 people want to read
About the author
Trezza Azzopardi
17 books43 followersTrezza Azzopardi is a British writer.
She was born in Cardiff to a Maltese father and a Welsh mother. She studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and currently works as a lecturer there. She also has an MA in Film and Television studies from the University of Derby.
Her first novel, The Hiding Place, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000 (a significant accomplishment, since first novels are not often shortlisted for the Booker). Her novel also won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was also shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her second novel, "Remember Me", was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. "Winterton Blue" was longlisted for the 2008 Wales Book of the Year. She also writes short stories, and readings for BBC radio. Her books have been translated into 17 languages.
Azzopardi currently lives in Norwich, in the east of England.
She was born in Cardiff to a Maltese father and a Welsh mother. She studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and currently works as a lecturer there. She also has an MA in Film and Television studies from the University of Derby.
Her first novel, The Hiding Place, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000 (a significant accomplishment, since first novels are not often shortlisted for the Booker). Her novel also won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was also shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her second novel, "Remember Me", was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. "Winterton Blue" was longlisted for the 2008 Wales Book of the Year. She also writes short stories, and readings for BBC radio. Her books have been translated into 17 languages.
Azzopardi currently lives in Norwich, in the east of England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 191 reviews
December 27, 2021
Rather tiredly, I picked up what I thought would be a light read, on the evening of Boxing Day (26th December), before starting something I really wanted to get into, when I would have more mental energy. I ended up skim-reading this fairly short novel, because I found it annoying from the outset. The voice is problematic, as it's all supposed to be from the viewpoint of a girl of under four years old, but stories from then, or from before her birth, are told in an authoritative, adult style, which was supposed to reflect her older age looking back and piecing together what life was like for her family and herself. I started skim-reading at Chapter Two.
The father is a drunken gambler who is violent and the mother has to find ways to feed her children, but she is neglectful. The book has been compared to "Angela's Ashes", but Frank McCourt's book is broadly autobiographical and he was older when the events of the book occurred. "The Hiding Place", as far as I can tell, is purely fictional, although based on the hard life of immigrants in Cardiff in the sixties. I skipped to the end and wasn't impressed with that either.
It left me with a feeling of guilt that families lived such lives only twelve miles away from where I was brought up in security and comfort, in the same era. Not a book I would recommend to anyone. Just off now to see if I can find on the shelves a copy of Celine's "Voyage au bout de la nuit" (see Théodore's review) which might not be more cheerful but at least would be well written!
The father is a drunken gambler who is violent and the mother has to find ways to feed her children, but she is neglectful. The book has been compared to "Angela's Ashes", but Frank McCourt's book is broadly autobiographical and he was older when the events of the book occurred. "The Hiding Place", as far as I can tell, is purely fictional, although based on the hard life of immigrants in Cardiff in the sixties. I skipped to the end and wasn't impressed with that either.
It left me with a feeling of guilt that families lived such lives only twelve miles away from where I was brought up in security and comfort, in the same era. Not a book I would recommend to anyone. Just off now to see if I can find on the shelves a copy of Celine's "Voyage au bout de la nuit" (see Théodore's review) which might not be more cheerful but at least would be well written!
December 22, 2025
Family saga set in a working-class Maltese immigrant community near the docks of Cardiff in the 1960s to 1980s. The family consists of parents Frankie and Mary Gauci, and their six daughters. The story is told from the perspective of the youngest daughter Dol when she is older, looking back on her childhood. Themes include poverty and the lingering effects of trauma. Fire and gambling play important roles in the story. The book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000, which is the reason I picked it up. I did not know what to expect and had difficulty remaining engaged, probably due to the disjointed narrative. The storyline contains a litany of misery. It is well written at the prose level but too bleak for me.
May 29, 2010
This is an amazingly powerful novel about a struggling working class family in Cardiff, Wales. It begins in the early 60's and travels to the end of the nineties using the various horrifying revelations in the memory of Dolores, the youngest sibling in a family of six daughters, to move the tale forward.
Poverty, immorality, superstition, mental illness and illiteracy set the stage for abuse, neglect, dysfunction and deprivation that defies the imagination. Each successive memory is progressively worse than the one preceding it.
This book will have a profound effect on the reader. This is not a book one will easily forget as it exposes the wounded family with all of its fatal flaws; the children and the parents are all scarred by something. There is physical abuse, human trafficking in which a child is bartered into slavery, another sent to foster care, another beaten brutally, another permanently injured in tragic circumstances, all tortured by each other in one way or another, as well as by society. Even those that escape the environment bear the marks and damage of memories they try to suppress.
The depths to which some will sink in order to survive, for purely selfish reasons, will astound the reader. The inability of others to live and/or fulfill their natural family obligations, as they are thwarted by life's haphazard circumstances, will pain the reader. They cannot find a way out of their circumstances so their dreams and/enormous obligations remain unfulfilled. Their stories will keep one turning pages.
Ignorance and superstition stifled and destroyed many lives. This book opens a window onto their suffering. If you read it, you will not be sorry, although you will surely be extremely saddened to learn of the hopelessness that existed for these characters at so many stages of their lives.
The one part of the book that disturbed me deeply, was that the kindest, often unjustly, suffered the most, while the guilty often escaped punishment, although their actions caused monumental suffering for others. Perhaps that is true to life, unfortunately; the guilty often do get away unscathed leaving a trail of misery in their wake.
Poverty, immorality, superstition, mental illness and illiteracy set the stage for abuse, neglect, dysfunction and deprivation that defies the imagination. Each successive memory is progressively worse than the one preceding it.
This book will have a profound effect on the reader. This is not a book one will easily forget as it exposes the wounded family with all of its fatal flaws; the children and the parents are all scarred by something. There is physical abuse, human trafficking in which a child is bartered into slavery, another sent to foster care, another beaten brutally, another permanently injured in tragic circumstances, all tortured by each other in one way or another, as well as by society. Even those that escape the environment bear the marks and damage of memories they try to suppress.
The depths to which some will sink in order to survive, for purely selfish reasons, will astound the reader. The inability of others to live and/or fulfill their natural family obligations, as they are thwarted by life's haphazard circumstances, will pain the reader. They cannot find a way out of their circumstances so their dreams and/enormous obligations remain unfulfilled. Their stories will keep one turning pages.
Ignorance and superstition stifled and destroyed many lives. This book opens a window onto their suffering. If you read it, you will not be sorry, although you will surely be extremely saddened to learn of the hopelessness that existed for these characters at so many stages of their lives.
The one part of the book that disturbed me deeply, was that the kindest, often unjustly, suffered the most, while the guilty often escaped punishment, although their actions caused monumental suffering for others. Perhaps that is true to life, unfortunately; the guilty often do get away unscathed leaving a trail of misery in their wake.
October 3, 2014
We are discussing this book on Saturday for reading group, so my thoughts may change after chatting about it and I'll let you know.*
I read this in a couple of days and found it really readable and engaging enough that I wanted to keep reading it and finding out what had happened. I was drawn in by the style of the writing too, which in the main I enjoyed.
I wasn't a huge fan on the structure of the book - going back and forth in time - and found the second part of the book where the main character is all grown up a little weak.
I live in Cardiff, so enjoyed the cardiffness of it all (although tiger bay in the 60s is very different to now and not something I'm familiar with).
Ultimately though, although I could see the positives in this, I just never got emotionally involved in it. The themes of the book are quite harrowing and bleak, but I felt unaffected by it and felt very much removed from it all, not caring for any of the characters really.
I guess it just didn't feel real to me, it felt like I was reading a story, something made up... which I know I am, but to feel really caught up in a book, you need to believe in it.
*turned out most people in reading group really liked it but found it too bleak. Made me feel like maybe I was a psychopath as I didn't connect to it....
I read this in a couple of days and found it really readable and engaging enough that I wanted to keep reading it and finding out what had happened. I was drawn in by the style of the writing too, which in the main I enjoyed.
I wasn't a huge fan on the structure of the book - going back and forth in time - and found the second part of the book where the main character is all grown up a little weak.
I live in Cardiff, so enjoyed the cardiffness of it all (although tiger bay in the 60s is very different to now and not something I'm familiar with).
Ultimately though, although I could see the positives in this, I just never got emotionally involved in it. The themes of the book are quite harrowing and bleak, but I felt unaffected by it and felt very much removed from it all, not caring for any of the characters really.
I guess it just didn't feel real to me, it felt like I was reading a story, something made up... which I know I am, but to feel really caught up in a book, you need to believe in it.
*turned out most people in reading group really liked it but found it too bleak. Made me feel like maybe I was a psychopath as I didn't connect to it....
December 14, 2013
What an entrance. The first time anybody heard of Trezza Azzopardi, she was nominated for one of the world's most prestigious literary awards. Nestled among books by Kazuo Ishiguro and Margaret Atwood, there sat "The Hiding Place," a first novel by a recent graduate student, up for this year's Booker Prize. English bookstores scrambled to find copies. Readers in the US were locked out while publishers bid on the domestic rights. Gratefully, Atlantic Monthly Press, the most discerning publisher of literary fiction in America, is releasing the book this week.
Wherever Azzopardi has been hiding, it's been worth the wait. Her novel about the misfortunes of the Gauci family in Cardiff, Wales, burns with the blue flame of long smothered agony. And yet her sophisticated handling of the early-trauma memoir, made so spectacularly popular by Frank McCourt & Co., casts fresh light on the process of memory and the subjectivity of experience.
The story is told by Dolores, the youngest of the Gauci's six girls in a poor Maltese immigrant community. A series of delicately rendered scenes shows the family collapsing in a neighborhood that's slowly being demolished in the 1960s. You can smell the close, grimy quarters of Cardiff in these pages. Azzopardi creates a collection of neighbors pushed alternately to compassion or bitterness by unrelenting poverty.
The children, meanwhile, must navigate this turbulence largely on their own. Dolores's hauntingly cool voice - a hybrid perspective of a child's innocence and an adult's irony - describes the family's decay.
Their father, Frank, is a man given more chances than he deserves. He owns half a cafe that could support them, but he can't shake the thirst for easy wealth, and in the process he starves his family, pushing his wife and one of his daughters into prostitution.
The night Dolores is born, Frank is playing cards with a two-bit gangster, "an archetypal villain who makes sure he looks the part." His friends send him a lie about the birth to raise his spirits: "My father, who is Frankie Bambina to his friends, poor unlucky Frank to have so many daughters, twists in reckless joy, and loses the cafe, the shoebox under the floorboards full with big money, his own father's ruby ring, and my mother's white lace gown…. At least I have a son, he thinks, as he rolls the ring across the worn green felt."
In the novel's most wrenching moment, 1-month-old Dolores is almost burned to death in their apartment. She survives the flames, but loses her wispy new hair, much of her baby-soft skin, and her left hand.
Regarded first as a disappointment for being a girl, by the time Dolores becomes aware of herself, she's aware of herself as a charred embodiment of the family's bad luck.
One of the many frightening talents of this new author is the way she delineates the scale of a child's pain. Tragedies large and small sear Dolores with equivalent effect. When her pet rabbits are killed, for instance, the damage to her seems almost as severe as the loss of her hand.
Their mother loves these girls and fights to save them from their father's carelessness and the social workers' care, but circumstances seem destined to crush her body and mind. She's never free from the terror of having to support six children while lashed to an abusive husband ready to sell off anything and anyone that might bring in a bit of luck or money.
Dolores winds through these events without blame or sentimentality. She has a clear-eyed view of her parents' agony even through the cloud of their shameless irresponsibility. She wants only to retrieve these memories and place them in order, as though that might relieve her of the burden of wishing she could have saved her parents from themselves.
A short section set in the present day at first seems tacked on to this harrowing story of childhood. But it quickly complicates the novel in fascinating ways. Dolores notes, "As with all truth, there is another version." When the sisters gather for the first time in 30 years for their mother's funeral, the air is thick with those other versions - long-nursed grievances, rock-solid denial, and the unquenched need to reconnect with their fellow survivors.
Dolores begins to realize that common experiences don't make for common perceptions or similar needs. Some of her sisters insist she couldn't have witnessed crucial events she recalls with great precision. The oldest sibling has interred the past and insists that no one disturb it. For Dolores, this long-awaited reunion threatens a final separation from her siblings. And yet, as with so much of the suffering in this book, there is a kind of tenacious love beating beneath the surface.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0111/p1...
Wherever Azzopardi has been hiding, it's been worth the wait. Her novel about the misfortunes of the Gauci family in Cardiff, Wales, burns with the blue flame of long smothered agony. And yet her sophisticated handling of the early-trauma memoir, made so spectacularly popular by Frank McCourt & Co., casts fresh light on the process of memory and the subjectivity of experience.
The story is told by Dolores, the youngest of the Gauci's six girls in a poor Maltese immigrant community. A series of delicately rendered scenes shows the family collapsing in a neighborhood that's slowly being demolished in the 1960s. You can smell the close, grimy quarters of Cardiff in these pages. Azzopardi creates a collection of neighbors pushed alternately to compassion or bitterness by unrelenting poverty.
The children, meanwhile, must navigate this turbulence largely on their own. Dolores's hauntingly cool voice - a hybrid perspective of a child's innocence and an adult's irony - describes the family's decay.
Their father, Frank, is a man given more chances than he deserves. He owns half a cafe that could support them, but he can't shake the thirst for easy wealth, and in the process he starves his family, pushing his wife and one of his daughters into prostitution.
The night Dolores is born, Frank is playing cards with a two-bit gangster, "an archetypal villain who makes sure he looks the part." His friends send him a lie about the birth to raise his spirits: "My father, who is Frankie Bambina to his friends, poor unlucky Frank to have so many daughters, twists in reckless joy, and loses the cafe, the shoebox under the floorboards full with big money, his own father's ruby ring, and my mother's white lace gown…. At least I have a son, he thinks, as he rolls the ring across the worn green felt."
In the novel's most wrenching moment, 1-month-old Dolores is almost burned to death in their apartment. She survives the flames, but loses her wispy new hair, much of her baby-soft skin, and her left hand.
Regarded first as a disappointment for being a girl, by the time Dolores becomes aware of herself, she's aware of herself as a charred embodiment of the family's bad luck.
One of the many frightening talents of this new author is the way she delineates the scale of a child's pain. Tragedies large and small sear Dolores with equivalent effect. When her pet rabbits are killed, for instance, the damage to her seems almost as severe as the loss of her hand.
Their mother loves these girls and fights to save them from their father's carelessness and the social workers' care, but circumstances seem destined to crush her body and mind. She's never free from the terror of having to support six children while lashed to an abusive husband ready to sell off anything and anyone that might bring in a bit of luck or money.
Dolores winds through these events without blame or sentimentality. She has a clear-eyed view of her parents' agony even through the cloud of their shameless irresponsibility. She wants only to retrieve these memories and place them in order, as though that might relieve her of the burden of wishing she could have saved her parents from themselves.
A short section set in the present day at first seems tacked on to this harrowing story of childhood. But it quickly complicates the novel in fascinating ways. Dolores notes, "As with all truth, there is another version." When the sisters gather for the first time in 30 years for their mother's funeral, the air is thick with those other versions - long-nursed grievances, rock-solid denial, and the unquenched need to reconnect with their fellow survivors.
Dolores begins to realize that common experiences don't make for common perceptions or similar needs. Some of her sisters insist she couldn't have witnessed crucial events she recalls with great precision. The oldest sibling has interred the past and insists that no one disturb it. For Dolores, this long-awaited reunion threatens a final separation from her siblings. And yet, as with so much of the suffering in this book, there is a kind of tenacious love beating beneath the surface.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0111/p1...
September 10, 2017
This novel is quite extraordinary; a compelling read. I found it by accident while on holiday when I really needed a new book, and ended up reading it through the night and finally saying 'wow!' I had intuited how it would end, but that didn't make me less impressed by it. The way the author structured the novel is impressive, and I think it was her very first. It feels very autobiographical, and if it's not, then it is truly impressive.... and of course, I hope it wasn't autobiographical given the content.
August 13, 2021
Dieser erste Roman von Trezza Azzopardi, veröffentlicht 2000, ist zwar richtig, richtig gut - aber das Elend dieser bitterarmen Kindheit unter maltesischen Einwanderern im walisischen Cardiff der 1960er, ohne Verbündete und unter bösartigen Geschwistern, machte es zu belastender Lektüre. Die Struktur des Romans zeichnet vergrabene entsetzliche Erinnerungen nach. Das meiste wird aus der Ich-Perspektive der ein- bis fünfjährigen Dolores erzählt, die viele Details wahrnimmt (aus dem titelgebenden Versteck), aber uninterpretiert oder falsch eingeordnet/gewichtet wiedergibt (es wird sogar aus ihrer Perspektive als Baby erzählt, das nach vielen Töchtern endlich ein Sohn hätte werden sollen - und eine so bittere Enttäuschung ist, dass man sich scheut, es dem gewalttätigen Vater auch nur mitzuteilen).
Andere Passagen sind aus der Perspektive der komplett überforderten Mutter erzählt, weitere aus der des Vaters, der die Familie mit seiner Spielsucht in noch größeres Unglück bringt. Viele der sachlich erzählten Details legen eine Interpretation nahe, die sich erst gegen Ende als falsch erweist: Als sich einige der mittlerweile erwachsenen Geschwister zur Beerdigung der Mutter treffen (und sind dann noch schlimmer, als es vorher geschildert, oder besser angedeutet wurde).
Interessanterweise erzeugt Azzopardi die würgend hoffnungslose Atmosphäre, indem gerade nicht Gefühle vorkommen oder innere Vorgänge. So wie man beim Stolpern erst den Stoß registriert und dann den Schmerz, bleibt es hier bei der Beschreibung der Stöße - es herrscht fast durchgehend die Erstarrung des Entsetzlichen. Und ich fand gut, dass am Ende auch nicht alle Lebenswege zu Ende erzählt werden, einige wichtige Personen bleiben als schmerzhafte Lücke; sie sind verschwunden und werden das im Leben der Hauptperson Dolores auch immer bleiben.
Andere Passagen sind aus der Perspektive der komplett überforderten Mutter erzählt, weitere aus der des Vaters, der die Familie mit seiner Spielsucht in noch größeres Unglück bringt. Viele der sachlich erzählten Details legen eine Interpretation nahe, die sich erst gegen Ende als falsch erweist: Als sich einige der mittlerweile erwachsenen Geschwister zur Beerdigung der Mutter treffen (und sind dann noch schlimmer, als es vorher geschildert, oder besser angedeutet wurde).
Interessanterweise erzeugt Azzopardi die würgend hoffnungslose Atmosphäre, indem gerade nicht Gefühle vorkommen oder innere Vorgänge. So wie man beim Stolpern erst den Stoß registriert und dann den Schmerz, bleibt es hier bei der Beschreibung der Stöße - es herrscht fast durchgehend die Erstarrung des Entsetzlichen. Und ich fand gut, dass am Ende auch nicht alle Lebenswege zu Ende erzählt werden, einige wichtige Personen bleiben als schmerzhafte Lücke; sie sind verschwunden und werden das im Leben der Hauptperson Dolores auch immer bleiben.
July 8, 2009
Not an easy read due to the way the story is laid out and jumps around so much. Also a lot of characters to try to keep straight. By the ending, I was not at all sure what exactly had happened to the main character. Maybe I need to re-read portions of it, but don't really want to.
January 3, 2021
This book has much in common with Shuggie Bain, and in some ways is better realized.
August 23, 2011
I couldn't decide whether to give this a three or a four star rating. I went with three stars, but it would be more accurate to say 3.5. Anyway, this is a very dark but well written book, and since I appreciate good writing, I enjoyed the book for that alone. The story reminded me of Angela's Ashes, but I liked it much more than I did that book.
The family in the story is very poor, and the mother can't cope with the horrible situation in which she finds herself with five daughters to care for and a gambling, irresponsible husband. Dolores, the youngest daughter, narrates most of the book, and at times I wasn't sure whose narration I was reading, which was confusing for me, but I still became emotionally involved with the characters. I actually cried at the end, which tells me I DID at least understand some of what I read.
This book is not for anyone who likes a book with a linear plot.
The family in the story is very poor, and the mother can't cope with the horrible situation in which she finds herself with five daughters to care for and a gambling, irresponsible husband. Dolores, the youngest daughter, narrates most of the book, and at times I wasn't sure whose narration I was reading, which was confusing for me, but I still became emotionally involved with the characters. I actually cried at the end, which tells me I DID at least understand some of what I read.
This book is not for anyone who likes a book with a linear plot.
October 31, 2020
I wonder sometimes why a particular novel has been written, beyond the severe test of technique and endurance required.
First novels are often autobiographical, but Azzopardi’s debut, dedicated to her mother, takes the reader to a very dark place, a poor family in the Maltese community of 1960s Cardiff, in which six daughters scrap and scrabble to survive.
Father Frankie is a wastrel, gambling money he doesn’t have on anything that moves; mother Mary a nervous wreck, unable to cope. As a result, the children are neglected or run wild, Celesta – aloof, Rose and Luca with their petty cruelties, disturbed Fran of pyromaniac tendencies, Marina sold to an uncertain fate, and the youngest, Dolores, scarred in a fire as a baby.
The story is seen through her eyes, half-understood scenes and conversations seen and overheard as a child, and now re-examined as she and her sisters come together for Mary’s funeral.
It’s a painful ride as secrets are dragged out. As Dolores discovers, rumours change over the years – ‘a small fire is an inferno, a burnt hand is a horror story’ - but it’s not so much the past misery that leaves a bleak impression so much as the refusal to provide much by way of a compensatory uplift at the end.
There are a few more sympathetic characters outside the family, the kind-hearted Eva, looked down upon by neighbours because she’s married to a Moslem, the interfering Carlotta, and her husband, the gentle Salvatore. And in the background is Tino Martineau, rent collector, lover. Visiting his small fruit and veg shop, Dolores notes the crate of oranges on the pavement: ‘Mould closes round them like frost.’ It’s a tiny detail, but symbolic: No-one of good intentions is to be rewarded in this world.
Frankie, on the other hand, gets off scot free, despite his appalling behaviour, having gambled away his business and home, even wife’s wedding dress to small-time crook Joe Medora. He is prompted to think, briefly, of Mary and ‘The shock she’ll get when she finds out she’s homeless, and her wedding dress adorns a bottle-blonde from Llanelli.’
It’s a characteristic observation in a book that judges appearances with a shrewd and distinctively feminine eye. Celesta has a new hair-do with a pair of new-moon curls that ‘lie sharp along her cheekbones, as if she’s been licked by the Devil’ in preparation for her marriage to the unlovely Pippo with his heavily-oiled slick of hair. And in payback for those childhood cruelties, Dolores observes that Luca ‘has sealed her lips with a deep red pencil line, as if to stop her thoughts from leaking.’
Azzopardi is also sensitive to small gestures that betray deeper emotions, witnessed for example after the fire that disfigures the baby Dolores and puts her into hospital. Her father (the writer re-imagines) ‘stares down into his cup, grateful for something to look at,’ and women pat Mary on the shoulder ‘as if by touching her they’re warding off bad luck.’
It’s also as if there is no escape, no refreshment at the end of a tour through an underworld of selfishness and broken promises. The best one can do, it seems, is hide. I’d hoped for a brighter beam of light.
First novels are often autobiographical, but Azzopardi’s debut, dedicated to her mother, takes the reader to a very dark place, a poor family in the Maltese community of 1960s Cardiff, in which six daughters scrap and scrabble to survive.
Father Frankie is a wastrel, gambling money he doesn’t have on anything that moves; mother Mary a nervous wreck, unable to cope. As a result, the children are neglected or run wild, Celesta – aloof, Rose and Luca with their petty cruelties, disturbed Fran of pyromaniac tendencies, Marina sold to an uncertain fate, and the youngest, Dolores, scarred in a fire as a baby.
The story is seen through her eyes, half-understood scenes and conversations seen and overheard as a child, and now re-examined as she and her sisters come together for Mary’s funeral.
It’s a painful ride as secrets are dragged out. As Dolores discovers, rumours change over the years – ‘a small fire is an inferno, a burnt hand is a horror story’ - but it’s not so much the past misery that leaves a bleak impression so much as the refusal to provide much by way of a compensatory uplift at the end.
There are a few more sympathetic characters outside the family, the kind-hearted Eva, looked down upon by neighbours because she’s married to a Moslem, the interfering Carlotta, and her husband, the gentle Salvatore. And in the background is Tino Martineau, rent collector, lover. Visiting his small fruit and veg shop, Dolores notes the crate of oranges on the pavement: ‘Mould closes round them like frost.’ It’s a tiny detail, but symbolic: No-one of good intentions is to be rewarded in this world.
Frankie, on the other hand, gets off scot free, despite his appalling behaviour, having gambled away his business and home, even wife’s wedding dress to small-time crook Joe Medora. He is prompted to think, briefly, of Mary and ‘The shock she’ll get when she finds out she’s homeless, and her wedding dress adorns a bottle-blonde from Llanelli.’
It’s a characteristic observation in a book that judges appearances with a shrewd and distinctively feminine eye. Celesta has a new hair-do with a pair of new-moon curls that ‘lie sharp along her cheekbones, as if she’s been licked by the Devil’ in preparation for her marriage to the unlovely Pippo with his heavily-oiled slick of hair. And in payback for those childhood cruelties, Dolores observes that Luca ‘has sealed her lips with a deep red pencil line, as if to stop her thoughts from leaking.’
Azzopardi is also sensitive to small gestures that betray deeper emotions, witnessed for example after the fire that disfigures the baby Dolores and puts her into hospital. Her father (the writer re-imagines) ‘stares down into his cup, grateful for something to look at,’ and women pat Mary on the shoulder ‘as if by touching her they’re warding off bad luck.’
It’s also as if there is no escape, no refreshment at the end of a tour through an underworld of selfishness and broken promises. The best one can do, it seems, is hide. I’d hoped for a brighter beam of light.
February 25, 2021
An interesting story, not always easy to follow, but unfortunately not the best book to cheer you up in the middle of the lockdown.
May 20, 2012
The plot had potential but the writing style made it painfully slow, often boring and in the end confusing. This is the story of a family set in the background of Maltese immigrants in Cardiff. Not actually knowing that background myself, many of the settings reminded me of the Godfather or the Sopranos. The parents Frankie and Mary go through some hard times and aren't very successful taking care of their six girls and so it's often the community that has to do it for them. While I liked some of the characters (Eva and Salvatore come to mind) many of the main characters were hard to pinpoint and understand.
The 2nd part of the book concerns a family reunion many years later and it's a little more interesting but I didn't find all the answers I was looking for, in fact it left me even more confused.
For much of the story, the narrator is a 1 month baby, but she knows about things that happen around her and even in places she is not present: this despite it being clear that she's an outcast in her family and nobody ever told her anything about her childhood. How does she know all of it then? Then, in much of the action she is 5 years old but in her adulthood she seems to recall things from that time with amazing detail. The endless descriptions of dirty objects come to mind...
Another thing that I didn't like was the way the writer introduced dialogue. She obviously never heard of hyphens so the only indicator of a voice was a new paragraph.
Finally, even though throughout the whole book the narrator is Dol in the 1st person, we can also get inside the minds of the other characters from a 3rd person perspective, especially in the 2nd part of book. Very confusing change of perspective.
Probably not an author I will be turning to again, I'm afraid, and also not a book that made me want to visit Cardiff.
The 2nd part of the book concerns a family reunion many years later and it's a little more interesting but I didn't find all the answers I was looking for, in fact it left me even more confused.
For much of the story, the narrator is a 1 month baby, but she knows about things that happen around her and even in places she is not present: this despite it being clear that she's an outcast in her family and nobody ever told her anything about her childhood. How does she know all of it then? Then, in much of the action she is 5 years old but in her adulthood she seems to recall things from that time with amazing detail. The endless descriptions of dirty objects come to mind...
Another thing that I didn't like was the way the writer introduced dialogue. She obviously never heard of hyphens so the only indicator of a voice was a new paragraph.
Finally, even though throughout the whole book the narrator is Dol in the 1st person, we can also get inside the minds of the other characters from a 3rd person perspective, especially in the 2nd part of book. Very confusing change of perspective.
Probably not an author I will be turning to again, I'm afraid, and also not a book that made me want to visit Cardiff.
October 21, 2013
I've wanted to read this book for ages not just because it got good reviews and was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2000, but because I'm Maltese so it follows that I'm very interested in anyone of Maltese descent who is a successful writer.
I had read some excellent reviews of this when it first came out so I had very high expectations. I did enjoy the sensuous use of language and the author's talent for evoking the sense of place and time, but I nevertheless had a few rather childish issues with the content of the book.
Firstly, I read in an interview with the author that she never actually knew anyone similar to Frank Gauci (arguably the main antagonist in the novel) and I couldn't help feeling slightly short-changed that she had depicted this Maltese immigrant as such a cruel and abusive husband and father (as well as a crappy friend). There were points when the novel almost took on the tone of misery-lit.
Secondly, would it have been so terrible to have used Maltese words and phrases rather than Italian ones? These could have been easily explained in little footnotes. I resent the idea that Italian and Maltese are interchangeable.
I had read some excellent reviews of this when it first came out so I had very high expectations. I did enjoy the sensuous use of language and the author's talent for evoking the sense of place and time, but I nevertheless had a few rather childish issues with the content of the book.
Firstly, I read in an interview with the author that she never actually knew anyone similar to Frank Gauci (arguably the main antagonist in the novel) and I couldn't help feeling slightly short-changed that she had depicted this Maltese immigrant as such a cruel and abusive husband and father (as well as a crappy friend). There were points when the novel almost took on the tone of misery-lit.
Secondly, would it have been so terrible to have used Maltese words and phrases rather than Italian ones? These could have been easily explained in little footnotes. I resent the idea that Italian and Maltese are interchangeable.
July 22, 2016
I was not sure what to expect with this book other than I figured it would probably be a sad story and I was absolutely right about that. It is a very depressing and gut wrenching story with very little redeeming qualities about it. The story is about a family with 6 daughters who all had something bad happen to them in one form or another and I don't mean they got grounded but instead burned, sold, sent to a mental institution or beaten. It was a hard book to read due to the style of writing and the way it jumps all around. In the end, you don't ever find out what happens to all of the girls or the father which I know is sending a message but I always want some closure for everything and I didn't get it in this book. It was really hard for me personally to enjoy this book because I never felt like any of them really made it out of their horrible childhoods to have wonderful lives. It's just very depressing.
June 30, 2008
I started this months ago and put it down. My first reaction was that it is dark - it almost feels as if it is written in a minor key. The mostly third-person voice and limited dialogue create a moody, lonely context. All of which add up to my reaction that it is very well crafted - impressive that it can be so evocative ... but I don't like the feelings it evokes so I was hesitant to keep reading. As I persevere though I am realizing the voice of Dol (the only first-person narrative?) and the fierce love of Mary for her girls has pulled me in and I need to find out where we are going ...
So. Finished. 3 stars because the writing / the way the novel is crafted is exquisite. But I almost wish I never picked it up. Frankie is irredeemable (why create a character with whom sympathy is impossible?) Rose and Lucca not much better. The final dozen pages were just so so sad.
So. Finished. 3 stars because the writing / the way the novel is crafted is exquisite. But I almost wish I never picked it up. Frankie is irredeemable (why create a character with whom sympathy is impossible?) Rose and Lucca not much better. The final dozen pages were just so so sad.
February 5, 2008
This is one of those well-written books about an abusive family in the 1960s in Cardiff (Wales, I think?) with an abusive, gambling dad, mentally ill mom, blah, blah, blah of the type that I'm just too jaded to get anything out of anymore. There's not a whole lot in the way of plot, more like little epiphanies and memories. Certainly individual scenes are nice, and the prose is very polished, but I never got invested enough to really care what was happening. I blame the scores of similarly themed novels that came before as well as the many recent memoirs that cover a lot of the same territory.
May 1, 2022
This novel tells the story of a poor Maltese family of six daughters, an absent father and a mentally-ill mother growing up in 1960s Cardiff, Wales. The story is told through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Dolores. In the second half of the book, the sisters who have been separated from each other for almost thirty years, return to Cardiff in the 1990s for their mother's funeral. I never found myself fully understanding the story and it never came together for me. A disappointment.
March 28, 2009
This drama did a remarkable job of describing the breakdown of a family. Everything rang true--the characters, their interactions with one another, and especially the casual cruelty and deep protectiveness among siblings.
February 12, 2016
Not the usual subject matter for a page-turner, but I didn't want to put the book down. Finished it after the kids went to bed, and I wanted to hug them.
September 13, 2017
Interesting story, strange unappealing writing style.
March 22, 2024
I enjoyed getting an insight into the Maltese community in Cardiff in the 60s. This is a very sad and bleak story, but I confess to feeling a bit of distance from the narrative. Perhaps because our narrator exists at a bit of a distance from everything? Very early on she gets badly burned as a child and as such is kept inside a lot, so there's a slightly odd perspective where we are ostensibly seeing through the eyes of a young child, except the narration style is quite mature and is often presenting events that the character herself was not present for. That said, I did find myself compelled to know what would happen, but I definitely preferred the first part which focused on the family in the 60s rather than part two which was set much later.
November 1, 2021
La famiglia Gauci vive in una piccola stanzetta sopra il Moonlight, locale frequentato dai marinai di Cardiff e di proprietà di un losco individuo. Si tratta di una famiglia numerosa, composta dai signori Gauci e da cinque figlie femmine.
La voce narrante è quella della piccola Dol, che, senza fronzoli e senza edulcorare il racconto, descrive la vita in famiglia, una vita caratterizzata da miseria, violenza, dolore, bugie, disamore e follia.
La seconda parte del romanzo è incentrata sul ritorno a casa, dopo anni di separazione e disgregazione familiare. Sta al lettore scoprire se sarà possibile per tutti i personaggi ritrovare una parvenza di armonia...
Una lettura particolare senz'altro, forse non per tutti; quello che colpisce di più è decisamente la freddezza dei personaggi. Nonostante si tratti di una storia familiare, da cui il lettore si aspetta, come nella maggior parte di esse, di essere avvolto dal calore dei sentimenti, qui tutti si rivelano incapaci di gestire le emozioni, anzi, sembra che non ne provino nemmeno. Questo aspetto, mescolato poi al contesto misero, non fa che spiazzare e trasmettere un senso di angoscia perenne.
La scrittura è fluida e l'autrice si dimostra un'abile narratrice.
La voce narrante è quella della piccola Dol, che, senza fronzoli e senza edulcorare il racconto, descrive la vita in famiglia, una vita caratterizzata da miseria, violenza, dolore, bugie, disamore e follia.
La seconda parte del romanzo è incentrata sul ritorno a casa, dopo anni di separazione e disgregazione familiare. Sta al lettore scoprire se sarà possibile per tutti i personaggi ritrovare una parvenza di armonia...
Una lettura particolare senz'altro, forse non per tutti; quello che colpisce di più è decisamente la freddezza dei personaggi. Nonostante si tratti di una storia familiare, da cui il lettore si aspetta, come nella maggior parte di esse, di essere avvolto dal calore dei sentimenti, qui tutti si rivelano incapaci di gestire le emozioni, anzi, sembra che non ne provino nemmeno. Questo aspetto, mescolato poi al contesto misero, non fa che spiazzare e trasmettere un senso di angoscia perenne.
La scrittura è fluida e l'autrice si dimostra un'abile narratrice.
October 29, 2022
Trezza Azzopardi (b.1961) emerged into the literary landscape with a rare accomplishment: The Hiding Place was her debut novel and it was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize. Debut novels are quite commonly shortlisted for major prizes here in Australia, but it doesn't often happen with the Booker. The Hiding Place also joined some very distinguished company when it won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2001 and was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Since then Azzopardi has published four more novels: Remember Me, (2003); Winterton Blue, (2007) and The Song House, (2010) and The Tip of My Tongue (2013).
Karen at Booker Talk lists The Hiding Place among Welsh authors: 80 Books to inspire you and from there she links to this review which included Azzopardi's novel in Wales Arts Review’s ‘Greatest Welsh Novel’ series. I did not know any of this when I bought the book back in 2005 from the Readings Bargain Table. I noticed the Booker shortlisting on its cover, and brought it home.
The Hiding Place defies any romanticised How Green was My Valley expectations you might have of Welsh writing. Azzopardi was born in Cardiff to a Maltese father and a Welsh mother, and her novel is set in the underbelly of Cardiff — its docklands, where sailors came from all over the world and made use of the gambling dens, the clubs and the good-time girls. Sometimes these men fell for a local lass and stayed. Salvatore marries Carlotta and stays clear of the vice but makes the mistake of befriending and trusting Frankie...
Azzopardi doesn't romanticise the Maltese community of the postwar era in this story of a dysfunctional family. Frankie Gauci, aided and abetted by a bunch of gangsters and gamblers, is a monster who destroys his family: his wife Mary, and his six girls, Celesta, Marina, Rose, Fran, Luca and Dolores, the youngest. Told through the eyes of Dolores, the story traverses the forties through to the sixties, beginning with her birth on the day when her father has gambled away his entire income — his half-share in Salvatore's café, along with their home above it, and all the money they have. His greatest regret, however, seems to be that he's also lost his father's ruby ring...
Dolores is brought home to sleep shut into a chest.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/03/22/t...
Karen at Booker Talk lists The Hiding Place among Welsh authors: 80 Books to inspire you and from there she links to this review which included Azzopardi's novel in Wales Arts Review’s ‘Greatest Welsh Novel’ series. I did not know any of this when I bought the book back in 2005 from the Readings Bargain Table. I noticed the Booker shortlisting on its cover, and brought it home.
The Hiding Place defies any romanticised How Green was My Valley expectations you might have of Welsh writing. Azzopardi was born in Cardiff to a Maltese father and a Welsh mother, and her novel is set in the underbelly of Cardiff — its docklands, where sailors came from all over the world and made use of the gambling dens, the clubs and the good-time girls. Sometimes these men fell for a local lass and stayed. Salvatore marries Carlotta and stays clear of the vice but makes the mistake of befriending and trusting Frankie...
Azzopardi doesn't romanticise the Maltese community of the postwar era in this story of a dysfunctional family. Frankie Gauci, aided and abetted by a bunch of gangsters and gamblers, is a monster who destroys his family: his wife Mary, and his six girls, Celesta, Marina, Rose, Fran, Luca and Dolores, the youngest. Told through the eyes of Dolores, the story traverses the forties through to the sixties, beginning with her birth on the day when her father has gambled away his entire income — his half-share in Salvatore's café, along with their home above it, and all the money they have. His greatest regret, however, seems to be that he's also lost his father's ruby ring...
Dolores is brought home to sleep shut into a chest.
My mother told me how she wrapped me in a shawl at night and hid me from my father.
He would have smothered you, she said, without malice but with a strange sense of pride, as if I were a Rescue kitten she had taken in. (p.5)
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/03/22/t...
July 11, 2013
It's hard to believe that this astonishingly accomplished lyrical account of loss upon loss -- "Children burnt and children bartered: someone must be to blame" -- is a first novel. Against a drizzly backdrop of Cardiff docklands in the process of demolition, Dolores Gauci, the sixth girl born to a brutal, ne'er-do-well Maltese father and a neglectful, adulterous Welsh mother, untangles skeins of memory, story, and speculation to try to find the threads that tie together her burnt left hand, her vanished older sister, her runaway father and his murdered friend, her mother's insanity, and, finally -- as the loss of her five fingers foreshadowed -- the scattering of her remaining sisters soon after the oldest's wedding. That her family disintegrated before Dol turned six makes much of what she feels "ghost pain," "miss[ing] what [she] never had," and ultimately she's propelled by her desire to collect the people she has lost -- particularly to reattach to her sisters, who are as "slippery as a set of new cards." She wants to share their histories and secrets, to be at last included in the family.
Trezza Azzopardi's characters are so sharply drawn that they bite, and her details, evoking muddy back yards, stained sheets, rubbish-strewn streets, and scuzzy cafés, are strangely lovely. What makes this novel brilliant, though, is its tone. Despite the misery they express, the sentences, written in quick-paced present tense, lilt and caper. Dol's voice and sensibility match those of the third-person narrator, who slips in and out of this rich and complexly structured novel to reveal events that the little girl could not have seen. Both note the most minute images, such as the scum on the surface of a cup of tea, and Dol is entirely without self-pity, just as the third-person narrator is without pathos. Near the end of the novel Dol's adult awareness of her sorrow and resentment slightly tarnish the brightness of her straightforward tone. Remarkably, here for the first time the dark surroundings feel oppressive.
"Someone must be to blame." But throughout this dazzling novel Dol recognizes that it's difficult to say precisely who. Azzopardi allows Dol to construct an order with herself at the center, but both the novelist and the character understand that "as with all truth, there is another version."
Trezza Azzopardi's characters are so sharply drawn that they bite, and her details, evoking muddy back yards, stained sheets, rubbish-strewn streets, and scuzzy cafés, are strangely lovely. What makes this novel brilliant, though, is its tone. Despite the misery they express, the sentences, written in quick-paced present tense, lilt and caper. Dol's voice and sensibility match those of the third-person narrator, who slips in and out of this rich and complexly structured novel to reveal events that the little girl could not have seen. Both note the most minute images, such as the scum on the surface of a cup of tea, and Dol is entirely without self-pity, just as the third-person narrator is without pathos. Near the end of the novel Dol's adult awareness of her sorrow and resentment slightly tarnish the brightness of her straightforward tone. Remarkably, here for the first time the dark surroundings feel oppressive.
"Someone must be to blame." But throughout this dazzling novel Dol recognizes that it's difficult to say precisely who. Azzopardi allows Dol to construct an order with herself at the center, but both the novelist and the character understand that "as with all truth, there is another version."
August 10, 2017
3.5 stars. rounded up
March 20, 2014
God this book was sad. I almost lost it reading the final scene on the bus. I'm pretty sure the guy next to me was a bit worried about all the sniffling and eye-dabbing and the way I kept my gaze fixed pointedly out the window.
The structure of this book was sort of weird and is something I think I need to contemplate a bit more. It's all in present tense, which also feels strange, because the story is made up primarily of Dol's memories, which don't seem like memories but more like immediate events that are taking place as they are narrated. But I think that speaks to the trauma that this book centers around. All of the main events of the story are long in the past, but they feel as immediate as ever. The trauma never goes away, no matter how long ago it was or how much physical space you've put between the trauma and yourself.
Gorgeous prose--Dol's burned white hand is like "a closed white tulip"--even if the pace of the novel sometimes lags. It isn't revealed the Dol is back in her old house because her mother died until very late in the book, which I think was a mistake. The disjointed quality of the memories would have been better explained if that information had been right at the front. Overall quite a good read, and I'm looking forward to working with this wrier at UEA next year!
The structure of this book was sort of weird and is something I think I need to contemplate a bit more. It's all in present tense, which also feels strange, because the story is made up primarily of Dol's memories, which don't seem like memories but more like immediate events that are taking place as they are narrated. But I think that speaks to the trauma that this book centers around. All of the main events of the story are long in the past, but they feel as immediate as ever. The trauma never goes away, no matter how long ago it was or how much physical space you've put between the trauma and yourself.
Gorgeous prose--Dol's burned white hand is like "a closed white tulip"--even if the pace of the novel sometimes lags. It isn't revealed the Dol is back in her old house because her mother died until very late in the book, which I think was a mistake. The disjointed quality of the memories would have been better explained if that information had been right at the front. Overall quite a good read, and I'm looking forward to working with this wrier at UEA next year!
August 6, 2011
Reading this I felt throughout that the author was writing from the subconscious rather than the thesaurus. It was like connecting with someone’s abstract thoughts at a very high level. I could not fault the writing, or the underlying meaning with which every word seemed loaded. My enjoyment of the writing was tempered, though, by the fact that I often had no idea what was going on. The story is strikingly similar to ‘The Gathering’ by Anne Enright (a book that left me similarly perplexed). A family harbours troubling secrets, and at a reunion the grown up children skirt around them. Fans of dark, mysterious, literary fiction with plenty of brain work for the reader should enjoy this.
The pedant in me is always going to be prejudiced against books without speech marks, and this is yet another of that growing breed. I don’t believe the world needs yet another manner of circumventing the laws of punctuation, and the way of handling dialogue in this book left sentences feeling fractured. “The brain can spot dialogue without the need for speech marks,” claim these modern authors, but they just put me in mind of primary school children who can’t wait to ride their bikes down the street ‘no hands’. I’m with Lynne Truss on this one!
The pedant in me is always going to be prejudiced against books without speech marks, and this is yet another of that growing breed. I don’t believe the world needs yet another manner of circumventing the laws of punctuation, and the way of handling dialogue in this book left sentences feeling fractured. “The brain can spot dialogue without the need for speech marks,” claim these modern authors, but they just put me in mind of primary school children who can’t wait to ride their bikes down the street ‘no hands’. I’m with Lynne Truss on this one!
January 5, 2012
The main issue this book addresses is that the girl's father takes all the money and leaves. Another big thing is that her mother gets sick and dies. Almost all her sisters leave home for some reason, so she and Rose are left alone. Eventually they end up leaving
If it wasn't in the time and place it was in the book wouldn't be as freaky. If it were in our day and age, it wouldn't be too bad at all. The place is a poor place, if they had more money it'd be easier.
The protagonist is Dolores. She never deserved to get in trouble when she did. The antagonist would be her Dad. He abused them and gambled away their money. He eventually left them all on their own.
I disliked a lot about the book. Mostly the language. It swore a lot, and said things in weird ways that no one could understand. It made it a lot harder to read.
"They have pinned a notice on the door which I know says, KEEP OUT. THIS MEANS YOU!" I didn't like that quote, because it shows how mean her sisters are to her.
Theme: Those who gamble end up losing it and leaving their families.
I'd recommend this book to older people with a lot of time on their hands. Because I didn't understand if fully, because of the words they've used. Also if you took more time reading it you'd probably enjoy it more.
If it wasn't in the time and place it was in the book wouldn't be as freaky. If it were in our day and age, it wouldn't be too bad at all. The place is a poor place, if they had more money it'd be easier.
The protagonist is Dolores. She never deserved to get in trouble when she did. The antagonist would be her Dad. He abused them and gambled away their money. He eventually left them all on their own.
I disliked a lot about the book. Mostly the language. It swore a lot, and said things in weird ways that no one could understand. It made it a lot harder to read.
"They have pinned a notice on the door which I know says, KEEP OUT. THIS MEANS YOU!" I didn't like that quote, because it shows how mean her sisters are to her.
Theme: Those who gamble end up losing it and leaving their families.
I'd recommend this book to older people with a lot of time on their hands. Because I didn't understand if fully, because of the words they've used. Also if you took more time reading it you'd probably enjoy it more.
September 22, 2009
Trezza Azzopardi was nominated for the prestigious international Booker award for her first novel: The Hiding Place. Set in a 1960s immigrant enclave in Cardiff, Wales, The Hiding Place is told from the point of view of the youngest daughter in a Maltese family, Dol, short for Dolores. The family is brutalized by their boorish, selfish father,Frankie, a man who never wanted Dol, nor really any of his six daughters who, in Frankie's mind, surely should have been sons if they were to be of any value. Each daughter deals with the pain of Frankie's decisions and of Mary, their mother, who eventually has a mental breakdown under the stress and oppression of Frankie. Beautifully written using unconventional punctuation and paragraphing, The Hiding Place is a treasure for anyone who loves original storytelling with deep insight into the human condition. The story very much evokes the tone and feel of Khaled Hosseini's Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Warning: Azzopardi has depicted reality in growing up in Cardiff, Wales, near the docks--with all its roughness and jagged edges. This includes some profanity.
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