Product Description A deeply moving memoir about a young boy growing up in Dublin and his family's homesickness for a country they can call their own. Review "A complex and layered story, intriguingly different from all those other Irish-childhood memoirs." -- Orlando Sentinel"A fine and timely book from an exquisitely gifted writer...beautiful, subtle, unflashy, perfectly realized and quite extraordinarily powerful." -- Joseph O'Connor"A fine reminder that there are many ways of being Irish." -- New York Newsday"A masterful piece of work-timely, inventive, provocative and perfectly weighted. Don't be surprised if it becomes a classic." -- Colum McCann"A memoir of childhood that often reads like a craftily composed work of fiction." -- Daily Telegraph (London)"A memoir of warmth and wisdom...tender and profound and, best of all, tells the truth. I loved it." -- Patrick McCabe"A prize-delicate, achingly well-observed and wonderfully moving." -- A.L. Kennedy"A wonderful, subtle, problematic and humane book....about Ireland...about a particular family...about alternatives and complexities anywhere." -- Irish Times"An astonishing account, both delicate and strong, of great issues of twentieth-century Europe, modern Ireland, and family everywhere." -- Nuala O'Faolain"An astonishing achievement...a landmark in Irish nonfiction.a masterpiece." -- Washington Post"Evocative, agitating and inspiriting, Speckled People sticks up for diversity and principled dissent...extending the scope of Irish memoir." -- Independent"Full of several different kinds of passion with a real tragedy at its heart." -- Margaret Forster"Hamilton's most successful book to date, after building up a fine reputation as a novelist." -- Irish Voice"Hamilton's style is an engaging mix of the salty and literary." -- New York Times Book Review"Never clichd, thanks largely to Hamilton's frankly poetic language and masterful portait of childhood.a beautiful memoir." -- Publishers Weekly"The long wait for this most talented novelist to cast his eye over his homeland has been worth it." -- GQ"The most gripping book I've read in ages...a fascinating, disturbing and often very funny memoir." -- Roddy Doyle"Unlike most Irish memoirs, this one is devoid of sentimentality. Which doesn't make it any the less heartrending. " -- Philadelphia Inquirer