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Rosie

Scenes from a Vanished Life

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Rosie

By: Rose Tremain
Narrated by: Rose Tremain
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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Rosie: Scenes from a Vanished Life, written and read by Rose Tremain.

Rose Tremain grew up in post-war London, a city of grey austerity, still partly in ruins, where both food and affection were fiercely rationed. The girl known then as ‘Rosie’ and her sister Jo spent their days longing for their grandparents' farm, buried deep in the Hampshire countryside, a green paradise of feasts and freedom, where they could at last roam and dream.

But when Rosie is ten years old, everything changes. She and Jo lose their father, their London house, their school, their friends, and -- most agonisingly of all -- their beloved Nanny, Vera, the only adult to have shown them real love and affection.

Briskly dispatched to a freezing boarding-school in Hertfordshire, they once again feel like imprisoned castaways. But slowly the teenage Rosie escapes from the cold world of the Fifties, into a place of inspiration and mischief, of loving friendships and dedicated teachers, where a young writer is suddenly ready to be born.

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Critic Reviews

Rose Tremain famously eschews autobiographical material in her fiction, so this account of her childhood feels so fresh it stings… [she] brings her formidable talent for characterisation to bear on the vanished, culpable cast of her childhood (Claire Lowdon)
Rose Tremain manages to fit more wisdom, more unforgettable scenes, more illuminating recollections, into this 194-page memoir than other writers do in memoirs three times the length. A book as nourishing, but concise as this makes you wonder why other writers have to be so long-winded ... For anyone who loves Tremain's novels this memoir is a vital companion (Ysenda Maxton Graham)
Intriguing and moving ... So much more alert and open and alive than so many slightly disappointing memoirs by otherwise great writers ... Rosie is a work of self-discovery in the best possible sense of the word - it pulls you in, unsettles, comforts and exhilarates and, finally, makes you see your life anew (Julie Myerson)
Rose Tremain turns to non-fiction for the first time with this lyrical account of her life up to the age of 18 ... The evocation of 1950s schoolgirldom, with all its emotions, elations and smells, is wonderfully vivid - distinctive, like being donated a set of dreams ... A quiet drama, but as you'd expect it's the writing that makes this book such a delight (Claire Harman)
A beautifully written ode to the tenacity of our younger selves (Francesca Brown)
This poignant memoir ... A telling portrait of what went into the making of one of our most acclaimed novelists (Fanny Blake)
The author uses her considerable narrative skills of set-up and delayed revelation to keep the reader enthralled ... Fans of her novels will know that Tremain has a brilliant eye for visual information, vividly deployed here (John Walsh)
An evocative, unflinching memoir ... electric (Hephzibah Anderson)
I was startled, but also very moved, by the almost abrasive directness of Rose Tremain's memoir Rosie. It did exactly what memoirs ought to do: made me want to rush straight back to her fiction (Julie Myerson)
Compelling, moving and nostalgic in its evocation of a bygone era (Charlotte Heathcote)
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