Childhood

A Memoir

Childhood
Shannon Burns
RRP:
NZ$ 40.00
Our Price:
NZ$ 32.00
Paperback
h234 x 153mm - 272pg
5 Oct 2022 AU
International import eta 7-19 days
9781922330789
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
Things may have been good for a while, but it didn' t last: they argued fiercely and he left. Weeks later, she tracked him down and said she was pregnant. So he moved back in with her and they prepared themselves for parenthood. Eleven months later I was born. By the time my father discovered the deception, it was too late. In this arresting memoir, Shannon Burns recalls a childhood spent bouncing between dysfunctional homes in impoverished suburbs, between families unwilling or unable to care for him. Aged nine, he beats his head against the pillow to get himself to sleep. Aged ten, he knows his mother will never be able to look after him: he is alone, and can trust no-one. Five years later, he is working in a recycling centre -hard labour, poorly paid-yet reading offers hope. He begins reciting lines from Greek lyric poets, Keats, Whitman, speeches by Martin Luther King, while sifting through the filthy cans and bottles. An affair with the mother of a schoolfriend eventually offers a way out, a path to a life utterly unlike the one he was born into.
' Childhood is about more than reliving trauma-it shows us how literature can offer a pathway to survival, if not redemption. Shannon Burns demonstrates how to soldier on when all hope and dignity are lost. ' * Tyson Yunkaporta * ' Childhood is raw and authentic. It tells a truth that can only come from being lived. ' * Justin Kurzel * ' Childhood is honest, confronting and lovely. We don' t hear enough from the hearts of poor children, and rarely like this. Shannon' s demonstration of the power of words is inspiring. And it reminds us all that we should never underestimate a boy with a fire inside. ' * Paul Kennedy * ' Childhood reads like Gorky and Tolstoy-not nudging but shoving the reader headfirst towards hard-won epiphanies with a brutal yet transcendent urgency. ' * Alice Pung *
Shannon Burns is a writer, critic and academic from Adelaide. His work has appeared in the Monthly, Meanjin, Australian Book Review and the Sydney Review of Books.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9781922330789
Published: 5 Oct 2022
Published In: Australia
Imprint: Text Publishing Company
Publisher: Text Publishing
Format: Paperback
Height: 234mm
Width: 153mm
Pages: 272

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