In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl [Paperback]

Rachel Trezise (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

From the same creative wave that's produced the current Welsh rock bands. It positively sings""-Leonora Brito. This is a first novel from a young Rhondda writer depicting the hard brutal edges of a difficult childhood lived in the 80s and 90s post-industrial wasteland of Wales's valley towns. It's an upside down Child's Christmas in Wales where the only present you can hope for is that your mom really does kill your dad this time with the bread knife. It's a funny, sad, and shocking portrait of a country where children are left to survive as best they can. Where the adults fight, steal, get drunk, get arrested, and then give the kids a hard time for taking drugs. It's a side of Wales the tourist board would prefer remain hidden.

About the Author

Rachel Trezise is the author of Dial M for Merthyr and Fresh Apples, and her stories and features have appeared in publications such as the Big Issue, New Welsh Review and Urban Welsh.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 122 pages
• Publisher: Parthian Books (April 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1902638077
• ISBN-13: 978-1902638072
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #3,692,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just how green was my valley?, May 19, 2001

By	D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl (Paperback)

Certainly a great book by a great writer. The questions that arise would not be important if the book were less important. A problem I've recently had with several first person narratives of traumatic childhoods (McCourt and Azzopardi for instance) is whether they are supposed to be fiction. This is described as a novel but the grandmother is given the name of the author's grandmother, and the writer steps in as omniscient narrator to discuss the sociology of the Rhondda Valley in a way that would only be justified if she were describing facts rather than fiction. She attributes the present decline to unemployment and yet previous years of unemployment and poverty gave rise to the culture described by Gwyn Thomas, and in Parnell's memoirs, and in Meic Stephens' anthology. The window of prosperity was brief. Were the valleys ever really full of chapel-goers, Welsh-speakers, poets, Marxists, singers, and auto-didacts?