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A Novel
by Matthew Kneale
Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family. He carefully watches over his willful little sister, Jemima, and his mother, Hannah. When Hannah becomes convinced that their estranged father is stalking them, the family flees London and heads for Rome, where Hannah lived happily as a young woman. For Lawrence, fascinated by stories of popes and emperors, Rome is an adventure. Though they are short of money, and move from home to home, staying with his mother’s old friends, little by little their new life seems to be taking shape. But the trouble that brought them to Italy will not quite leave them in peace.
Narrated in Lawrence’s perfectly rendered voice, When We Were Romans powerfully evokes the emotions and confusions of childhood—the triumphs, the jealousies, the fears, and the love. Even as everything he understands is turned upside down, Lawrence remains determined to keep his family together, viewing the world from a perspective that is at once endearingly innocent and preternaturally wise.
"Starred Review. [A] tale narrated by fiery, precocious, pitch-perfect Lawrence... As small incongruities pile up between what Lawrence sees and how he interprets what happens to him, the family’s hurtlings across Europe and the city take on a shattered poignancy." - Publishers Weekly.
"One of the best explorations of a child’s mind and heart in recent fiction, and its talented author's best book yet." - Kirkus Reviews.
"[Lawrence] is the literary first cousin of Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke… The heartbreak and triumph of When We Were Romans is that little Lawrence is "Matthew Kneale’s lovely novel… is narrated by Lawrence with insight, humour and sweetly erratic spelling: it halts and splutters in rhythm with the children’s whims and tantrums… the author has got inside a young, over-burdened mind with convincing accuracy." - Financial Times (UK).
"Kneale creates an extraordinary tension… the combination of insight and innocence Kneale gives Lawrence is powerfully affecting." - Sunday Times (UK).
"Kneale has succeeded… Lawrence has real presence and his situation is entirely believable." - Daily Telegraph (UK).
This information about When We Were Romans was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Matthew Kneale was born in London in 1960, the son of two writers. He is author of many prizewinning novels, including the bestselling English Passengers, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and was short-listed for the Booker Prize. He lives with his wife and two children in Rome.
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