A unique, tender and witty memoir of surviving the tough streets of small town Scotland during the Margaret Thatcher years
Damian Barr has been a journalist for over ten years writing mostly for The Times but also the Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Evening Standard and Granta. He is the author of Get It Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis, featured on Richard & Judy, and has co-written two plays for BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Faculty at the School of Life and host of the infamous Literary Salon at Shoreditch House. Damian Barr was named Writer of the Year at the 2013 Stonewall Awards. He lives in Brighton. @Damian_Barr
Shocking and funny in equal measure, and will have you weeping with
laughter and sorrow
*Independent on Sunday*
The wonderful story of a remarkable man, Maggie & Me is
heartbreaking and heartwarming. As gripping as a thriller,
laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, this book will resonate
long after you finish it. A triumph
*SJ Watson, author of Before I Go to Sleep*
Out of poverty, brutality and prejudice, Damian Barr builds
something riveting, touching and painfully funny. His account of
growing up under Thatcher's regime defines the experience of a
generation. At once personal and universal, Maggie & Me is a work
of stealthy genius
*Maggie O’Farrell*
A marvellous memoir – wrenching, funny and wise. I loved it!
*Joanne Harris*
This amazing book tells the story of an appalling childhood with
truth and clarity unsmudged by self-pity. It grips from beginning
to end and leaves the reader elated at the fact that such
experiences can be overcome and produce a man who can write a book
so vivid, so unsentimentally forgiving, and so memorable
*Diana Athill*
This book will break your heart and make you angry; then it will
lift your heart and make you glad; because Damian Barr has
transmuted a grim childhood into a work of art and brought forth
beauty from ashes
*Richard Holloway*
That Damian Barr survived his childhood is testament to his
startling courage and determination.That he was then able to write
about the experience with such wit, verve and candour is equally
astonishing. Maggie & Me is a cause for celebration on all kinds of
levels. Rejoice!
*Rupert Thomson*
Damian Barr sifts through the wreckage of a horrific childhood and
manages to extract humour, generosity of spirit and ultimately joy,
and he does it with a literary élan that had me re-reading whole
paragraphs, just for the pleasure of it. To say I loved it doesn't
begin to convey the mixture of emotions - tears, laughter, anger -
I felt while reading it. This book should be required reading for
children who need to know that there is life beyond an appalling
beginning, and for politicians who prefer to look the other way
*Jojo Moyes author of Me Before You*
Like all too few memoirs, in a bloated, me-me age, Maggie & Me ends
all too soon. Imagine one of the sharper Mitford sisters cruelly
reborn into the family from Shameless and you’ve an idea of the
treat in store. Barr tells his engaging, sad-funny story of a camp,
bright lad in dire circumstances in Thatcher-era Motherwell in such
a beguilingly confiding, arm-linking style, that I felt I'd made a
new best friend only to lose them to a world of glittering
opportunities. Read this at once before someone films it, as they
most surely will
*Patrick Gale*
This is the most vital, visceral memoir since Jeanette Winterson’s
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? … Barr’s depiction is so
pungent, so earth-shattering it's a universal story of alienation –
one for anyone who's ever felt desperate to escape. His childhood,
evoked with such cheek-biting tenderness, now seems more real and
more Technicolor than my own. I won't be happy until everyone reads
this book
*Patrick Strudwick*
Timely confessional – zestfully observed, sharply written, and
sprinkled with more lyricism and humour than a memoir of misery in
Motherwell suggests
*Independent*
Maggie & Me is a perfect chip supper of a memoir: nostalgic, tart,
crisp and seductive. It's also sad, kind, witty, and sexy. And
alarmingly educational
*Louisa Young*
Brilliantly observed, searingly intimate and painfully truthful,
Maggie & Me brought the eighties back to me at the same time as
making me question my established views of the whole decade. In
other words, like the very best books, it changed me a little
*Sathnam Sanghera author of The Boy with the Topknot*
‘A nuanced, subtle and original account ... What could have been a
flip idea with no real substance turns out to be a memoir which is
both personally moving and a valuable historical document. Barr’s
style is conversational, intimate and convincing, and he resists
every opportunity to show off. He holds his nerve tackling the
unfashionableness of his thesis – that Thatcher inspired even those
she seemed to despise – and makes us smile along the way
*Literary Review*
Certain memoirs catch a moment and seem to define it, bottle it ...
Damian Barr, I suspect, is about to do something of the same with
this hugely entertaining book ... Full to the brim with poignancy,
humour, brutality and energetic and sometimes shimmering prose, the
book confounds one’s assumptions about those years and drenches the
whole era in an emotionally charged comic grandeur. It is hugely
affecting
*Sunday Times*
Beyond his Maggie cult, this memoir can boast a humour, bravery and
brio that cross all party lines
*Independent*
Certain memoirs catch a moment and seem to define it, bottle it ...
Damian Barr, I suspect, is about to do something of the same with
this hugely entertaining book ... Published with outrageous good
timing ... Full to the brim with poignancy, humour, brutality and
energetic and sometimes shimmering prose, the book confounds one’s
assumptions about those years and drenches the whole era in an
emotionally charged comic grandeur. It is hugely affecting
*Sunday Times*
This memoir of deprivation and survival is shrewdly constructed and
written with a winning dry humour
*Guardian*
A brilliant, laugh-out-loud and profoundly moving Eighties
memoir
*GQ*
An inspiring read
*Marie Claire*
By turns funny, tender, and heartbreaking, it is also a useful
primer for anyone too young to remember what life was like in the
industrial areas of Britain enduring the changes wrought by
Thatcherism... A gifted storyteller, weaving skilfully back and
forth through time, and his unfussy prose flows delightfully...
Splendid
*Independent on Sunday*
Hugely affecting memoir
*Sunday Times*
Unlike most volumes of this kind, Maggie & Me is short on jokes and
long on raw, pungent atmosphere. Barr has a keen eye for wincingly
evocative detail... Expressed with a kind of grim lyricism
*New Statesman*
A touching and darkly humorous memoir... Topical and heartfelt
*TNT Magazine*
Witty, gritty and inspiring
*Glamour*
Maggie and Me by Damian Barr has a startling new take on the former
PM
*Herald*
Comi-tragic memoir
*Evening Standard*
A refreshing, affecting and ultimately triumphant account
*Metro*
Timely confessional – zestfully observed, sharply written, and
sprinkled with more lyricism and humour than a memoir of misery in
Motherwell suggests
*Independent*
A real storyline, touching and personal, and I found myself
laughing
*Mail on Sunday*
[A] talented writer ... Barr captures very well how it is possible
to learn and to love even in the most unpropitious environment. His
book is the better for the strange loyalty it shows to the place he
fled
*Daily Telegraph*
I was dazzled by the energy and verve of Damian Barr’s memoir,
Maggie & Me ... I’ve been shoving copies into people’s hands all
year
*Evening Standard*
Damian Barr’s wonderful memoir Maggie & Me … was the coming-of-age
story of this year
*Observer*
Written with beautiful clarity and no self-pity – I look forward to
seeing what he does next
*Observer*
Damian Barr’s Maggie & Me is easily my favourite book of 2013 ...
There isn’t a trace of bitterness in the beautiful book. Only the
radiant eloquence of a man whose courage and humanity shine from
its pages
*New Statesman*
Charming, life-enhancing
*The Times*
Barr’s moving, funny, inspiring memoir of growing up gay in
Motherwell is a virtuoso piece of autobiography that paints a vivid
portrait of our country’s recent past
*Metro*
The surprisingly funny and positive story of growing up gay in a
working-class town in Thatcher’s Britain. It’s worth the cover
price for the Dirty Dancing scene alone
*Independent on Sunday*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |