Kerry Hudson

'Kerry Hudson invites us to really understand the complexities of being born working class in Britain. Buy it, read it, tell everyone about it' Jack Monroe 'One of the most important books of the year' Guardian 'When every day of your life you have been told you have nothing of value to offer, that you are worth nothing to society, can you ever escape that sense of being 'lowborn' no matter how far you've come?' Kerry Hudson is proudly working class but she was never proudly poor. The poverty she grew up in was all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanising. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended nine primary schools and five secondaries, living in B&Bs and council flats. She scores eight out of ten on the Adverse Childhood Experiences measure of childhood trauma. Twenty years later, Kerry's life is unrecognisable. She's a prizewinning novelist who has travelled the world. She has a secure home, a loving partner and access to art, music, film and books. But she often finds herself looking over her shoulder, caught somehow between two worlds. Lowborn is Kerry's exploration of where she came from. She revisits the towns she grew up in to try to discover what being poor really means in Britain today and whether anything has changed. She also journeys into the hardest regions of her own childhood, because sometimes in order to move forwards we first have to look back.

Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain's Poorest Towns

Lowborn

When Janie Ryan is born, she's just the latest in a long line of Ryan women, Aberdeen fishwives to the marrow, always ready to fight. Her violet-eyed Grandma had predicted she'd be sly, while blowing Benson and Hedges smoke rings over her Ma's swollen belly. In the hospital, her family eyed her suspiciously, so close she could smell whether they'd had booze or food for breakfast. It was mostly booze. Tony Hogan tells the story of a Scottish childhood of sordid council flats and B & Bs, screeching women, feckless men, fags and booze and drugs, the dole queue and bread and marge sandwiches. It is also the story of an irresistible, irrepressible heroine, a dysfunctional family you can't help but adore, the absurdities of the eighties and the fierce bonds that tie people together no matter what. Told in an arrestingly original -- and cry-out-loud funny -- voice, it launches itself headlong into the middle of one of life's great fights, between the pull of the past and the freedom of the future. And Janie Ryan, born and bred for combat, is ready to win.

Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma

Een bewaker van een Londens warenhuis en een vermeende Russische winkeldievegge krijgen tegen wil en dank een bijzondere band.

Thirst

Set in 1980s Britain, this coming of age story follows Janie and her mother, a woman who brings a string of unsuitable men, including the hard-drinking, drug-dealing, ice-cream buying Tony Hogan, into their lives.

Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma

Winner of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust First Book Award 2013, Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Sky Arts Awards, the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year, the Portsmouth First Fiction Award, the Green Carnation Prize and the Polari Prize 'More than just one of the best debuts of the year; one of the best books of the year. It should do for Aberdeen what Trainspotting did for Edinburgh' Louise Welsh, Herald When Janie Ryan is born, she is destined to be the latest in a long line of Aberdeen fishwives. Ahead of her lies a life filled with feckless men, filthy council flats and bread and marge sandwiches. But Janie isn't like the rest of them. She wants a different life. And Janie, born and bred for combat, is ready to fight for it.

Kerry Hudson

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