When I Was
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Barbican Press
Published:18th Mar '25
Should be back in stock very soon
When it comes to memoir, Miranda Miller is an incorrigible novelist. Viola, three years old in 1953 when guests gather in her parents' London home to watch the Queen's coronation on TV, is not Miranda. Yet character and author share the same age, the same home, the same parents and three brothers, the same friends and fears and love of books and breathless adventures in her native city.
When I Was brings all the family members center stage, each character opening their consciousness to reveal a multi-faceted study as life presses in on a family's hopes and dreams.
The novel whisks us through 1950s London, in a tale as true as a novelist can make it. The twists of its drama, as a young girl forges her way into being, let you into secrets of resilience and love.
"Miller's intricate fictions are lit by the dark flicker of a strong and original imagination."
– Hilary Mantel
"I found it utterly compelling and could not put it down. The opening scenes are simply wonderful, every single note was so true. Lovely pure sounds, deftly struck. The narrative really moved – it was superbly paced. The family of the story is caught helplessly in an inexorable, grinding progression from old world to new. It's only hinted at in the [beginning] but from then on it's a world of earth tremors and eventually collapse. Yet it's still such a personal, intimate story of one hapless family and the reader feels for them so deeply! It's also a portrait of the artist in youth: [Miller], the mute observer, not missing a thing, observing so much. I wouldn't have missed this experience for the world. I'm enriched by it."
– Carolyn Polizzotto
ISBN: 9781917352000
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
264 pages
International