On the HahaFiction shelf
The Talk of Pram Town
Sadie grows up on her mother Connie’s dreams of singing stardom. In 1981, a family crisis sends the eleven-year-old from Leeds to a grandmother she has never met in Harlow. Connie, Sadie and grandmother Jean bring three different views of family life to a story that makes room for warmth and humor alongside disappointment and estrangement.
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What makes it funny?
Connie’s bid for stardom begins with a change of name and hair color, followed by the inconvenient realization that bleach alone will not make her Marilyn Monroe. Her insistence that she could have excelled at school quickly retreats into an admission that she could not be bothered.
The comedy at work
Nadin stays close to Connie’s defiant thoughts while letting her puncture her own claims. The sharpness comes from hearing the hopeful version she tells herself and the awkward qualification that follows it.
Try this if…
Sadie’s family story offers a return to 1970s and 1980s Leeds and Essex, with estranged mothers and daughters trying to understand each other. Expect humor alongside hurt and family disappointment.
Good to know
The opening includes childbirth, memories of sexual assault and strong language. The viewpoint shifts among generations; Bakewell Library’s reviewer found those changes sometimes interrupted the story’s flow.
More funny contemporary & literary
Sources & further reading
- The Talk of Pram Town by Joanna Nadin - Pan Macmillan
Publisher
- Author’s prologue excerpt
Reading sample
- The real Pram Town
Author commentary
- Pan Macmillan: The Talk of Pram Town
Publisher
- Bakewell Library: Aimee Mills on The Talk of Pram Town (page 2)
Library catalog
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