Book description
Suspicion had been fomenting within me for some time that our
family was different. Why, for example, were Pablito, my elder
brother, and I dark-haired with olive skin when the rest of my
classmates were sandy and pale? Why did our family have a second way
of speaking, which I didn't understand? Why was ours the only home I
knew where the walls were dominated with pictures of men in spangly
waistcoats and tight trousers?' For Antonio, growing up Spanish in
Glasgow is a nightmare Â- one of shame and potential embarrassment on
every front. But there is no hiding his ethnicity: his noisy, bullying
father, even his gentle mother and her quest for olives and exotic
meats, put paid to that. It is only as he grows older, and can see his
father for what he is, a reluctant exile washed up on the cold shores
of Scotland, that Antonio begins to understand what terrible forces
drove his father to flee 40 years before. Unravelling his father's
secret life piece by piece, Antonio discovers a truth that will shock
and heal him.
Carlos Alba is a journalist who has worked in Scotland for the past
17 years. He was editor of The Sunday Times (Scotland) since September
2006 after five years as deputy editor. Prior to that, he was Scottish
political editor of the Daily Record and education correspondent at The
Herald. He has won five Scottish Press awards. He is the author of
Kane's Ladder, also published by Polygon.
