This Boy

De: Alan Johnson

Narrado por: Alan Johnson

Alan Johnson's childhood was not so much difficult as unusual, particularly for a man who was destined to become Home Secretary. Not in respect of the poverty, which was shared with many of those living in the slums of post-war Britain, but in its transition from two-parent family to single mother and then to no parents at all...

This is essentially the story of two incredible women: Alan's mother, Lily, who battled against poor health, poverty, domestic violence and loneliness to try to ensure a better life for her children; and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a very young age and who fought to keep the family together and out of care when she herself was still only a child.

Played out against the background of a vanishing community living in condemned housing, the story moves from post-war austerity in pre-gentrified Notting Hill, through the race riots, school on the Kings Road, Chelsea in the Swinging 60s, to the rock-and-roll years, making a record in Denmark Street and becoming a husband and father whilst still in his teens.

This Boy is one man’s story, but it is also a story of England and the West London slums which are so hard to imagine in the capital today. No matter how harsh the details, Alan Johnson writes with a spirit of generous acceptance, of humour and openness which makes his book anything but a grim catalogue of miseries.

Reseñas de la Crítica

the best memoir by a politician you will ever read (Philip Collins)

a poignant memoir…Johnson writes wonderfully (Mary Kenny)

deeply moving and unforgettable (Lynn Barber)

a handsome and eloquent tribute (Peter Wilby)

beautifully, beautifully written... his style is utterly simple, with a wit so understated that every reader will believe that he or she alone got it (John Rentoul)

Neither mawkish nor sentimental, it is an evocative, filmic account on an early childhood... would make a fabulous drama that, for all its squalor, lifts the spirits (Judith Woods)

a testament to the power of family love and a tribute to two strong women (Ian Birrell)

Wonderful and moving... unreadable with a dry eye

the biography of a politician like no other - beautifully observed, humorous, moving, uplifting; told with a dry self-deprecating wit and not a trace of self-pity (Chris Mullin)

No ordinary politician's memoir ... wonderful. (John Grimond)