*The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller*
Rose Tremain (or Rosie as she was then) grew up in post-war London – a city still partly in ruins, where both food and affection were fiercely rationed.
Rose Tremain famously eschews autobiographical material in her fiction, so this account of her childhood feels so fresh it stings… [she] brings her formidable talent for characterisation to bear on the vanished, culpable cast of her childhood
Rose Tremain manages to fit
more wisdom, more unforgettable scenes, more illuminating recollections, into this 194-page memoir than other writers do in memoirs three times the length.
A book as nourishing, but concise as this makes you wonder why other writers have to be so long-winded ... For anyone who loves Tremain's novels
this memoir is a vital companionIntriguing and moving ... So much more
alert and open and alive than so many slightly disappointing memoirs by otherwise great writers ...
Rosie is
a work of self-discovery in the best possible sense of the word - it pulls you in, unsettles, comforts and exhilarates and, finally,
makes you see your life anewRose Tremain turns to non-fiction for the first time with this
lyrical account of her life up to the age of 18 ... The evocation of 1950s schoolgirldom, with all its emotions, elations and smells, is
wonderfully vivid - distinctive, like being donated a set of dreams ... A quiet drama, but as you'd expect it's
the writing that makes this book such a delightA beautifully written ode to the tenacity of our younger selvesRose Tremain's novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (
The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award
(The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (
Music & Silence) the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Femina in France (
Sacred Country) and the South Bank Sky Arts Award (
The Gustav Sonata). Her most recent novel is
Lily, a Richard and Judy Book Club selection. Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007 and a Dame in 2020. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.