"Tatty" by Christine Dwyer Hickey

An audio book.

1964. The narrator, Caroline (Tatty), has a new baby sibling. The narrator imagines the world seen through the baby's gradually focussing eyes.

In Chapter 2 the narrator's 5. She lives in Dublin. Her father likes the horses. She knows about the local pubs - where the toilets are, the back/upstairs rooms. The landladies offer her meals and ask her about her family. She's learnt to say little. She has a special sister Dierdra who eventually goes to a special school. Tatty's alert to the phases of arguments her parents have. She intercedes when her mother starts battering her little brother. She lies to her father about having friends.

Her father (who she thinks loves her more than her mother does) sends her to a boarding school when she's about 10. Her older sister Jeany wants to go too. Her mother is drinking and is pregnant again. She lives in a separate part of the house. When her father collects her for Xmas, he's drunk and has a crash.

Later, she's summoned back home. She sees "a snowman going brown at the edges, like a fruit going off". Her mother has wrecked the house then overdosed on sleeping pills. She'll recover. Their father blames the kids. He promises that everything's going to be different - mum's giving up drink and Tatty's staying home. He then pops out to see a friend.

I didn't see much to admire in the book.

Other reviews

• Dorothy Allen (The story is deceptively simple in construction: it’s told from Tatty’s perspective in 10 chapters as she ages from four to 14. As she grows, so do her perceptions and the complexity of the novel grows on the reader.)