Book description
'This is the Crittendon Home for Unwed Mothers. We believe your birth
mother is trying to find you...'
Having escaped the madness of her adoptive family (mother Louise
committing suicide at the seventh attempt, father Sheldon finding
solace in an ever-growing porn collection) American-born Sandra Newman
was living in the punk rock squalor of eighties London. She had made a
new home in the cheerful Bohemian demi-monde of dreamers, drunks, and
anarchists. When the call came, she was living in a squat, taking milk
in coffee to make it a meal, surviving variously by temping, scamming,
and turning tricks. The daylight world, where people have careers and
families, seemed very far away.
Sandra's second chance at parents led her to opulent mansions in
Hollywood, a hidden city of astronauts in the Soviet Union, and
success as a writer. Her new life promises 'an improbable, abracadabra
joy - what angels feel, or the children of happy families feel.' Laced
with a streak of surreal humour and told with disarming honesty,
Sandra Newman's memoir is an arresting tale of loss, belonging and rescue.
Sandra Newman was born in America but has lived in Germany, Russia,
Malaysia, and England. Her professions have ranged from academia to
professional gambling. She studied Creative Writing at UEA, and her
first novel,
The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done,
was shortlisted for the
Guardian
First Book Award. Her second novel,
Cake
, was published by Chatto in 2007. In 2009 she co-wrote
How NOT to
Write a Novel
. She currently lives in New York.
