Once In A House On Fire: A Memoir

by Andrea Ashworth

Book Overview

Internationally acclaimed as one of the most exciting debuts of the year, this stunning memoir has put Andrea Ashworth on the literary map as one of the brightest stars of her generation. Once in a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805057633
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.0" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Intense - Exceptional

Andrea Ashworth writes with a conciseness and beauty that I can only marvel at. Talking about the emotive and heartbreaking subjects in this autobiography, she manages to horrify with a simple sentence or describe the feelings of childhood with sublime ease.The story is of growing up in Manchester in the late 70's and early 80's. Ashworth lost her father at a young age; the first of a series of events that lead to domestic violence spanning a decade. We feel pain at the desperation that Ashworth's mother must have felt, anguish at the treatment of the children's futures and a constant sense of anger as we veer from disgust at the "Dads" as well as hatred for the mother that allows her children to be maltreated in these ways.The domestic violence campaign in the UK at the moment would receive a welcome boost if this book was more widely known. I constantly asked the question of why the mother stayed with such obviously useless, bullying and degenerate men, on more than one occassion having to put the book down to calm myself.I found myself at times with little respect or feeling for the mother, as I could not understand how she could stand by whilst men, that were not the father of Andrea or her sister Lawrie, beat them, locked them away for days or ripped up prized possessions as a way of venting their cowardly anger on those truly defenceless.I feel I am in a very good position to make this attack on the mother of Andrea Ashworth and her sisters. I was part of a young one-parent family when my mother was widowed with two children at the age of 26 and I live in the same city as this book is set. At no stage did she wallow in self-pity, allow anyone to lay a finger on me or my sister or watch any hope of either of us making something of ourselves go down the drain because someone else was jealous or ashamed of success not being their own. Because of this, we have broken the shackles of one-parent families and are, like Andrea, striking out on our own having got to University.To this end, the book is perversely warming that despite being against literally all the odds, Andrea made it. We are not told if Lawrie and Sarah also escape the clutches, but we sincerely hope so; it would be such a crying shame if Lawrie did not fulfill her ambition to be a dancer.In terms of the way this book is written, Ashworth shows an almost criminal ease in the way she describes everyday occurances. With just a well chosen verb or colour, the writing takes on a poetic slant at great odds with the horrors it describes. I found myself stopping to go back over certain words or phrases which were such a joy to read.Unlike Ashworth, I struggle to come up with the correct words to describe this piece of work. The reader is taken through the whole range of emotions in this primarily dark and distressing book. No read has ever angered me as much as this or involved me as though I was actually a part of the story. The common effect is having your cheer for the asc

Images

Andrea Ashworth has a stunning capacity in displaying long-lasting images. She writes her story in a way that is easy to relate to. Her use of words is capivating. These words, images, and her story pulled me in and kept me with her, making it hard to put the book down until I was done.

This is one of the best memoirs I've ever read.

This is a truly moving and beautifully written memoir. It reads like a visceral and sensual dream/nightmare. Through her astonishing command of language and sense of poetry, she first creates a world of a child who hungers for safety, love, and physical nourishment, then a world of a teenager who learns to nourish herself with poetry. I preferred this to Angela's Ashes.

Fresh imagery as in Nobokov's Lolita, reads like a novel

This delightful memoir reads like a novel. Its fresh imagery is reminiscent of Nabokov's Lolita. But it is the true story of how an abused child soared above her environment and escaped to Oxford University. It offers the reader a charming perspective of her past without self pity or rage. This book is an inspiration to all, especially to those traumatized by abuse and those who work with them. Translated into ten languages and ranking on the best seller lists in several countries, it is a must read. This reviewer, a psychiatrist, has found it instructive. Linn Turner, M.D.

An extraordinary book written with warmth and humour

I thoroughly recommend this book which charts the childhood of its author Andrea Ashworth. Although a memoir, the style is almost fictional, vivid, funny and moving. When Andrea is five, her father drowns. Two stepfathers reveal themselves to be capable of immense selfishness and great cruelty. However Once in a House on Fire is not simply the story of a poor and violent childhood. Brilliantly written, its warmth and humour conjure up the colours, tastes and smells of what it was like to grow up in the seventies in the north of England (with a brief stint in Canada). Andrea narrates from the perspective of the ages she writes about, spanning five to eighteen. Blessed with imagination and a love of books, stories were her escape, metaphorically and in the end, literally.