Ashley R. reviewed on + 2 more book reviews
My father has stopped for now, although, like most of the other Maltese, he won't settle in the city he can't escape the salt-scent of the docks.
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1948. Frank Gauci steps off the Callisto into the coldest winter ever, clutching a cardboard suitcase. It's all he has, until he finds a ruby ring, Joe Medora, and Mary.
When Frankie and his best friend Salvatore open the doors of the Moonlight Café, life seems good: downstairs there is sweet music, hot food, beautiful girls: and upstairs, there is gambling. Stick or Twist. It's Frankie's call. But luck becomes a stranger to Frankie. With a mass of debts, five daughters, and another child on the way, he turns to the card table one last time. He gambles, and he prays: this time, it has to be a boy.
It's a boy! cries Salvatore. Bambino, Frankie! And, my father, who is Frankie Bambina to his friends, poor unlucky Frank to have so many daughters, twists in reckless joy...
And so begins the chain of events which will haunt his family for forty years.
Through the eyes of Dolores, the Gaucis' youngest child, Trezza Azzopardi reveals a world rarely seen in fictionthe Cardiff underworld of the sixties. In prose that is sensitive and utterly compelling we discover the cafés and bars, the crumbling estates, the gaming roomsand the secrets that destroy a family.
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1948. Frank Gauci steps off the Callisto into the coldest winter ever, clutching a cardboard suitcase. It's all he has, until he finds a ruby ring, Joe Medora, and Mary.
When Frankie and his best friend Salvatore open the doors of the Moonlight Café, life seems good: downstairs there is sweet music, hot food, beautiful girls: and upstairs, there is gambling. Stick or Twist. It's Frankie's call. But luck becomes a stranger to Frankie. With a mass of debts, five daughters, and another child on the way, he turns to the card table one last time. He gambles, and he prays: this time, it has to be a boy.
It's a boy! cries Salvatore. Bambino, Frankie! And, my father, who is Frankie Bambina to his friends, poor unlucky Frank to have so many daughters, twists in reckless joy...
And so begins the chain of events which will haunt his family for forty years.
Through the eyes of Dolores, the Gaucis' youngest child, Trezza Azzopardi reveals a world rarely seen in fictionthe Cardiff underworld of the sixties. In prose that is sensitive and utterly compelling we discover the cafés and bars, the crumbling estates, the gaming roomsand the secrets that destroy a family.
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