Waking Up in Toytown
A Memoir
$36.81
- Paperback
272 pages
- Release Date
15 January 2011
Summary
The sequel to the award-winning A Lie About My Father.
In the early 80s, after a decade of drug abuse and borderline mental illness, John Burnside resolved to escape his addictive personality and find calm in a ‘Surbiton of the mind’. But the suburbs are not quite as normal as he had imagined and, as he relapses into chaos, he encounters a homicidal office worker who is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock and Petula Clark, an old lover, with whom he reprises a troubled, masochistic relatio…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780099507833 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0099507838 |
| Author: | John Burnside |
| Publisher: | Vintage Publishing |
| Imprint: | Vintage |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 272 |
| Release Date: | 15 January 2011 |
| Weight: | 191g |
| Dimensions: | 198mm x 129mm x 17mm |
| Series: | Burnside Biographies |
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Critics Review
There is no truer writer than John Burnside…[A] searching enquiry into a life: bruised, filled with grace and as plangent and haunting as any plainsong
“There is no truer writer than John Burnside…[A] searching enquiry into a life: bruised, filled with grace and as plangent and haunting as any plainsong” – Catherine Lockerbie Scotsman “Burnside’s memoir deserves to become a classic. Has anyone written about the direct experience of mental illness with such scrupulous observation and wit?” Daily Express “A brilliant portrait of isolation… This sophisticated study of the human mind argues for our right “to continue in the pursuit of whole-heartedness. To be not-normal after all” – Fiona Sampson Independent “Beautifully written and observed memoir … an affecting book from a writer of manifest talent; a compellingly readable memoir possessed of a genuine spiritual and intellectual depth” – Adam O’Riordan Sunday Telegraph “This is an extraordinary book and one so honest it scorches” – Carlo Gebler Irish Times
About The Author
John Burnside
John Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. He died in 2024.
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