The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi

 

Around the World in 80,000 Pages - Book 18

The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi

You can read about my Around the World in 80,000 Pages challenge here.

Miles travelled: 1,047 
Pages read: 6,991

Disclaimer: I'm rather behind on my reviews, so they will be super brief until I get caught up again.

Finally, we cross the Bristol Channel and into Wales, our second country.

The Hiding Place is, I suspect, a largely (or at least partly) biographical novel set in Cardiff, mostly in the 1960s. It centres around a family of girls, with a Maltese father and Welsh mother, as they battle through the trials and tribulations of a life bobbing about the poverty line, disintegrating in the process.

The prose is crystal clear, heartbreaking without being sentimental, and centres as much around what is not said as what is, seen as it is from the perspective of a young child who doesn't understand much of what is going on around her.

I would highly recommend this novel to any fans of social realism, and gave it 115/140 (★★★★★). The associated flag is the red dragon, the national flag of Wales. The suggested music is Saint Therese of the Roses by the Welsh crooner Malcolm Vaughan.