Not for the faint of heart, Long's story is a gritty, grueling, and
heartbreaking testament to one girl's unbreakable spirit.--Publishers
Weekly, starred review
When Martha Long's feckless mother hooks up with the Jackser (that bandy
aul bastard), and starts having more babies, the abuse and poverty in
the house grow more acute. Martha is regularly sent out to beg and more
often steal, and her wiles (as a child of 7, 8) are often the only thing
keeping food on the table. Jackser is a master of paranoid anger and
outburst, keeping the children in an unheated tenement, unable to go to
school, at the ready for his unpredictable rages. Then Martha is sent by
Jackser to a man he knows in exchange for the price of a few cigarettes.
She is nine. She is filthy, lice-ridden, outcast. Martha and Ma escape
to England, but for an itinerant Irishwoman finding work in late 1950s
England is a near impossibility. Martha treasures the time alone with
her mother, but amazingly Ma pines for Jackser and they eventually
return to Dublin and the other children. And yet there are prized
cartoon magazines, the occasional hidden penny to buy the children
sweets, the glimpse of loving family life in other houses, and Martha's
hope that she will soon be old enough to make her own way.
Virtually uneducated, Martha Long is natural-born storyteller. Written
in the vernacular of the day, the reader is tempted to speak like Martha
for the rest of a day (and don't let me hear yer woman roarin' bout it
neither). One can't help but cheer on this mischievous, quick-witted,
and persistent little girl who has captured hearts across Europe.
