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This exceptional debut novel about family, love, and the innocence and terror of years as a child has caused an absolute sensation, garnering no less than eleven leading publishers throughout the world. Occur a Maltese immigrant community in Cardiff, Wales, and peopled with sharp-edged, luminously drawn characters, The Concealing Place is the story of Frankie Gauci, his wife Mary, and their six daughters and about Frankie's betrayal, wagering away his family's livelihood and eventually the family itself. Written in wonderful language buoyed by elegance, this can be a mesmerizing exploration of how family, like flames, can shift instantly from something that provides light and warmth to a dangerous conflagration, sparing no person in its course. The Gaucis' story is seen through the eyes of Dolores, the youngest princess and, in her father's estimation, the embodiment of bad luck, condemned to carry the symbol of a family group that is quickly singeing at the edges. Having a lyricism that belies the horrors she so often recounts ("children burnt and children bartered: Someone must be at fault"), Dolores presents an unsparing portrayal of worries and hopelessness of years as a child amid grim poverty and neglect, of children growing up without protection nets and on sunken foundations. The Concealing Place conjures the coarse sensuality of life one of the docks, the smoky cafes and bars, the crumbling homes and gaming rooms of Tiger Bay. Sustained by a tightrope tension and incorporating the stark, fresh knowledge and the uncanny, perfect pitch of Susan Minot's Monkeys with the redemptive liveliness of the downtrodden in Angela's Ashes, The Concealing Place is a amazing, radiant debut.
