Pop

Kitty Aldridge

From Shelf: The 2002 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist

Maggie doesn't know everything, but she does know about the great comedians - Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Eric and Ernie - about country music, Shirley Bassie, and about how her mother died.Pop sings with the poetry of the suburbs and aches with the poignancy of adolescence.

During the heatwave of 1975, Maggie, thirteen, goes to live with her grandfather, Pop, in Sutton Coldfield. Pop's mission is to know everything: the annual Fox and Dogs pub quiz is looming. Maggie doesn't know everything, but she does know about the great comedians - Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper, Eric and Ernie - about country music, Shirley Bassie, and about how her mother died.Pop sings with the poetry of the suburbs and aches with the poignancy of adolescence. Kitty Aldridge has a wonderfully distinctive voice and a deliciously sharp eye for the extraordinariness of ordinary lives.

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