Glasshopper [electronic resource]
Ashdown, Isabel2011
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Portsmouth, 1984. Thirteen-year-old Jake's world is unravelling as his father and older brother leave home, and his mother plunges into alcoholic freefall.Despite his turbulent home life, Jake is an irrepressible teenager and his troubled mother is not the only thing on his mind: there's the hi-fi he's saving up for, his growing passion for Greek mythology (and his pretty classi teacher), and the anticipation of brief visits to see his dad. When his parents reconcile, life finally seems to be looking up. Their first family holiday, announced over scampi and chips in the Royal Oak, promises to be the icing on the cake — until long-unspoken family secrets begin to surface.Isabel Ashdown's debut novel tells a captivating story of family life, at once troubling, funny and joyous. Vividly bringing to life the gentility of a 1950s childhood, the free-spirited hedonism of the Sixties, and the urban domesticity of 1980s Portsmouth, this is an intimate, lyrical and deeply moving portrait of a family crumbling under the weight of past mistakes.
Main title:
Glasshopper [electronic resource] / Isabel Ashdown
Author:
Ashdown, Isabel, Author
Imprint:
[Place of publication not identified] : Myriad Editions, 2011
Collation:
1 online resource (1 text file)
System details:
Mode of access: Internet
Biography/History:
Isabel Ashdown lives in West Sussex with her carpenter husband and two children. She worked in product marketing for 15 years, frequently travelling throughout Europe and the United States. Despite not having written since school, in 2004 she gave up her senior management role to test her long-held ambition to become a writer, enrolling on a BA in Creative Writing at Chichester University. In 2007 she graduated with a first class honours degree in Creative Writing, and received the Hugo Donnelly Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement. She went on to win the 2008 Mail on Sunday Novel Competition with an extract from Glasshopper. Isabel recently gained an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction, for extracts from her second novel Hurry Up and Wait, which will be published by Myriad in 2011. Isabel Ashdown recently launched The Chichester Book Club - a new website dedicated to introducing local readers to books and authors in their region.
ISBN:
9780956792631
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
2758352