divinestudios

This book is thoroughly depressing, but I kept reading because I hoped there would be a happy ending. Azzopardi creates the believable voice of Winnie, a bag lady squatting in an abandoned shop. The first-person narration is so matter-of-fact that you forget Winnie isn't used to talking to people: there's a part where she says something like, "I think what I was saying came out a bit muddled. I may have started shouting." Those two sentences perfectly sum up how she is seen, and it's thought-provoking. There's an interesting theme of names running throughout the book: Winnie begins life as Patsy; when she goes to live with her grandfather he calls her Lillian, Mr Stadnik (the lodger) calls her Princess, and Joseph (her lover) calls her Beauty. Above all, I just wanted Winnie to be happy, but I knew right from the beginning that anyone who ends up as a vagrant is unlikely to have had a good life. The periods of happiness in Winnie's life were all too brief, and I put this book down feeling utterly miserable.

2022-10-04 11:30