Just One More Day: A Memoir

Author: Lewis, Susan

Brand: Arrow

Color: Multicolor

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 384

Release Date: 27-09-2016

Details: Product Description
In 1960s Bristol, a family is overshadowed by tragedyWhile Susan, a typically feisty seven-year-old, is busy being brave, her mother, Eddress, is struggling for courage. Though bound by an indestructible love, their journey through a world that is darkening with tragedy is fraught with the kind of misunderstandings that bring as much laughter as pain, and as many dreams as nightmares. How does a child cope when faced with a wall of adult secrets? What does a mother do when her biggest fear starts to become a reality? Because it's the Sixties, and because it's shameful to own up to feelings, Eddress tries to deny the truth, while Susan creates a world that will never allow her mother to leave. Set in a world where a fridge is a luxury, cars have starting handles, and where bingo and coupons bring in the little extras, Just One More Day is a deeply moving true-life account, told by mother and daughter, of how the spectre of death moved into their family, and how hard they tried to pretend it wasn't there.
Review
We use the phrase honest truth too lightly: it should be reserved for books - deeply moving books - like this. -- Alan Coren

Deeply moving. ―
Woman’s Weekly
From the Back Cover
Susan Lewis, the bestselling author of Wicked Beauty and The Hornbeam Tree has written a moving memoir of her early childhood growing up in the shadow of her mother's terminal illness.
About the Author
Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of thirty-nine novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. She lives in Gloucestershire. To find out more about Susan Lewis, visit her website www.susanlewis.com, or join in on www.facebook.com/SusanLewisBooks.Susan is a supporter of the breast cancer charity Breast Cancer Care: www.breastcancercare.org.uk and of the childhood bereavement charity Winston's Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One


Susan

I'm very brave. No-one else knows I'm being brave, because I haven't told them. It's a secret - between me and my dad.

I'm sitting at my desk now, in my classroom, watching the teacher chalk things up on the blackboard. It's something about poetry, but I'm not really paying attention, which would make Daddy cross, because he loves poems. I've got a lot to think about though, because it's not always easy being brave, and I have to make sure I'm doing it right.

As I think about it, I stare up at the big, oblong window with twelve square panes, where I can only see milkcoloured sky outside. If I stood on a chair to look I'd see the library next door, Warmley Hill and the petrol station opposite where my friends and I sometimes sneak into the ladies' toilets to play doctors and nurses. But that's another secret and I'm definitely never going to tell anyone about that - not even Daddy. And if Mummy ever found out I know she'd tell the police, because she already nearly did once. That was when she caught me and my friend Janet in the garden, pulling down our swimming costumes to show the boys our chests. We were so scared when Mummy came storming out of the house, telling us we were wicked and that she was taking us to the police, that we ran and hid in Mr Weiner's shed.SINGING THE WALLS Mummy wouldn't look for us there, because Mr Weiner's German and Mummy doesn't have anything to do with him because she still hasn't forgiven him for the war. Daddy has, but Daddy forgives everyone for everything.

Today my hair is in plaits with two white bows at the end of each one. Grown-ups are always going on about my hair, saying how lovely it is, all thick and red and curly, but it's all right for them, they don't have to put up with Mummy's brushing every morning, or the horrid, smelly boys in my class who call me Ginger and pull it. Granny told me once that Mummy, whose hair is the exact same colour (I bet Granny n

EAN: 9780099598749

Package Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches

Languages: English