Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory - Softcover

Carew, Keggie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 178470315X ISBN 13: 9781784703158

Publisher: Vintage, 2017

Synopsis

Keggie Carew grew up in the gravitational field of an unorthodox father who lived on
his wits and dazzling charm. As his memory begins to fail, she embarks on a quest to unravel his story and get to know who her father really was.

Tom Carew was a left-handed stutterer, a maverick and a law unto himself. As a member of the Jedburghs, an elite SOE unit, he was parachuted behind enemy lines to raise resistance in France, then Burma, in the Second World War. But his wartime exploits are only the start of it, and Keggie soon finds herself in a far more astonishing and consuming place than she had bargained for.

Dadland is a manhunt. Keggie takes us on a spellbinding journey, in peace and war, into surprising and shady corners of history, her rackety English childhood, the poignant breakdown of her family, the corridors of dementia and beyond. Part-detective story, part-memoir, part-history book, it is a celebration of the technicolour life an impossible, irresistible, unstoppable man.

About this title

About the Author:

Keggie Carew has lived in London, West Cork, Barcelona, Texas and New Zealand.
Before writing her career was in contemporary art. More recently she has studied English Literature at Goldsmiths, run an alternative art space called JAGO and opened a pop-up shop in the East End of London called theworldthewayiwantit. She lives near Salisbury.

Review:

""As Dad was losing his past... I was trying to retrieve it," Keggie writes... With the publication of this original, moving book, she has succeeded" -- Paul Laity * Guardian (Review) * "Compelling and moving from start to finish... Carew's funny, fascinating and unflinching tribute to her father is a portrait of a complex man: not just a war hero but a flawed husband; not just a Jedburgh but her incorrigible and much-missed dad" -- Melissa Harrison * Financial Times * "a thrilling, bloody, educative history of Churchill's Special Operations Executive... combined ingeniously with a tender, moving, funny portrait of the author's father" -- Nick Hornby * Observer * "A fascinating mix of military history and family memoir studded with photographs... It's one woman's attempt to put her father's role in history on the page, at the same time as his own recollections of it diminish" -- Cathy Rentzenbrink * The Times (Saturday Review) * "A poignant, inspiring and often comic account of family life and the man known as the T E Lawrence of Burma ... Ripping real-life yarns of double agents, secret messages, illicit assassinations and cyanide pills... the heroics and humour persist to the end" -- Richard Benson * Mail on Sunday * "A beautifully written, funny and tender ode to an adventurous, occasionally frustrating, man who lived life at full tilt" * Good Housekeeping * "It's now commonplace to say that sad memoirs are ultimately redemptive, but Dadland is the real McCoy. It is a rich and stunning achievement, a feat of imagination that sews together many parallel true stories. Above all, it is a labour of shining daughterly love" -- Caroline Sanderson * Sunday Express (S Magazine) * "I was so absorbed and moved by Dadland I haven't been able to read anything else. It is beautifully written -- deft and funny and so tender -- but I have also come away knowing more about history, more about dementia, more about men, more about daughters, more about love, family, sheds, diaries, an inquisitive mind and peeing in plastic bottles. I loved it. I really did." -- Rachel Joyce "Powerful memoir... The clouding of Tom's mind never eclipsed his charm ... Dadland is no tragedy, threaded as it is with forgiveness, love and a fine, fierce comic glitter" -- Jane Shilling * Telegraph * "Keggie turns spy on her father. She is on a "ghost hunt"... What she uncovers is an extraordinary gift for any memoirist... fascinating" -- Helen Davies * The Sunday Times * "How lovely to discover a book that makes one seize friends by the lapels and implore them, "Read this"... wonderful" -- Valerie Grove * Literary Review * "Gripping, heartfelt, moving and quite unlike anything Esquire has had the pleasure of reading this year... outstandingly good" * Esquire * "Dadland [had me] gripped from beginning to end." -- Philippe Sands * Financial Times, Book of the Year * "Dadland [had me] gripped from beginning to end." -- Philippe Sands * Financial Times, Book of the Year *

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 178470315X
• ISBN 13: 9781784703158
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432