The Speckled People - by Hugo Hamilton (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"A terrific achievement, thoughtful and compelling, smart and original, beautifully written." --Nick Hornby

"Astonishing. . . a landmark in Irish nonfiction. . . a masterpiece." -- Washington Post

A deeply moving and critically acclaimed memoir about a young boy growing up in 1950's Dublin with a German mother and fiercely republican Irish father.

Born to an Irish father and German mother, Hugo Hamilton and his brother and sister grew up being just about the only children in 1950's Dublin wearing Aran sweaters and Lederhosen. Their father, a Gaelic speaking Irish nationalist, forbid them from talking to their friends in English. And their mother, a soft-spoken immigrant who escaped late 1930s Nazi Germany, baked German cakes and told wistful stories of a country that no longer existed.

For Hugo, childhood seemed like an ongoing struggle to understand what it meant to be "one of the speckled people"--his father's phrase to describe "the New Irish, partly from Ireland and partly from somewhere else." A rare and shockingly honest account of a child's attempt to make sense of his family, language and identity, The Speckled People stands among the most fiercely original memoirs to emerge this decade.

From the Back Cover

"We wear Aran Sweaters and Lederhosen. We are forbidden from speaking English. We are trapped in a language war. We are the Speckled People." In one of the most original memoirs to emerge in years, Hugo Hamilton tells the haunting story of his German-Irish childhood in 1950s Dublin. His Gaelic-speaking, Irish nationalist father rules the home with tyranny, while his German-speaking mother rescues her children with cakes and stories of her own struggle against Nazi Germany. Out on the streets of Dublin is another country, where they are taunted as Nazis and subjected to a mock Nuremberg trial. Through the eyes of a child, this rare and shockingly honest book gradually makes sense of family, language, and identity, unlocking at last the secrets that his parents kept in the wardrobe.

Review Quotes

"A terrific achievement, thoughtful and compelling, smart and original, beautifully written." -- Nick Hornby

"An astonishing achievement...a landmark in Irish nonfiction...a masterpiece." -- Washington Post

"The rare quality of this memoir owes much to [Hamilton's] novelistic skills, not least his handling of the child's point of view throughout, with its luminously comprehending attentiveness to adult behavior...the cumulative effect is to elevate an act of scrupulous remembering into a work of art." -- New York Times Book Review

"A masterful piece of work--timely, inventive, provocative and perfectly weighted. Don't be surprised if it becomes a classic." -- Colum McCann

"The Speckled People stands head and shoulders above the ruck of memoirs pouring out of Ireland....an accomplished work of art and a strange tale brilliantly told." -- Boston Globe

"A fine reminder that there are many ways of being Irish." -- New York Newsday

"Unlike most Irish memoirs, this one is devoid of sentimentality. Which doesn't make it any the less heartrending. " -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"A complex and layered story, intriguingly different from all those other Irish-childhood memoirs." -- Orlando Sentinel

"A wonderful, subtle, problematic and humane book....about Ireland...about a particular family...about alternatives and complexities anywhere." -- Irish Times

"An astonishing account, both delicate and strong, of great issues of twentieth-century Europe, modern Ireland, and family everywhere." -- Nuala O'Faolain

"The long wait for this most talented novelist to cast his eye over his homeland has been worth it." -- GQ

"A prize--delicate, achingly well-observed and wonderfully moving." -- A.L. Kennedy

"Triumphantly avoids the Angela's Ashes style of sentimental nostalgia and victim claims... stands up well in the mighty, unending competition for most memorable Irish life-story." -- Guardian (London)

"Never clichéd, thanks largely to Hamilton's frankly poetic language and masterful portait of childhood...a beautiful memoir." -- Publishers Weekly

"A fine and timely book from an exquisitely gifted writer...beautiful, subtle, unflashy, perfectly realized and quite extraordinarily powerful." -- Joseph O'Connor

"A memoir of warmth and wisdom...tender and profound and, best of all, tells the truth. I loved it." -- Patrick McCabe

"Evocative, agitating and inspiriting, Speckled People sticks up for diversity and principled dissent...extending the scope of Irish memoir." -- Independent

"A memoir of childhood that often reads like a craftily composed work of fiction." -- Daily Telegraph (London)

"The most gripping book I've read in ages...a fascinating, disturbing and often very funny memoir." -- Roddy Doyle

"Full of several different kinds of passion with a real tragedy at its heart." -- Margaret Forster