Hailed by the critics as a masterpiece, Tatty is a devastating, yet hilarious,
depiction of a troubled Dublin family told through the lively, charismatic voice
of a little girl. With brutal honesty, Tatty tells the story of her life with
her beloved, feckless Dad, her tormented Mam, her five siblings and the booze
that brings them down. This not just an entertaining tale, but also a
heartbreaking account of a disturbed childhood that makes for compulsive
reading. From Amazon.
I randomly picked this up from a display of Orange Prize Nominees in the library. I'd seen it mentioned elsewhere earlier this week, though I have no recollection of where.This was a superb, though very short read. The author creates the childs voice superbly, although I could never get to grips with which narrative voice she was using, sometimes it appeared to be in the second person, sometimes in the third and sometimes I felt like the child was talking about herself in the third person. This would normally irritate the hell out of me, yet in this book it didn't matter. I was transported to a world of a five year old; trying to get to grips with the intricacies of the pub and her Dad's workmates, a 7 year old watching her mother struggle to get her disabled sister into a normal school, a world of many Aunts who bad-mouthed your father and the escape of boarding school. The charatcer is loveable, standing out from her tumbled family, dealing in her own way with her parents alcoholism and abandonment.If you liked Carry Me Down, My Sister's Keeper or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time try this.
If you have read this book feel free to comment or leave a link to your own review.
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