” The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets & Lies in Wolverhampton” is a hilarious & heart-rending reinvention of the modern British memoir. ” It`s 1979, I`m three years old, & like all breakfast times during my youth it begins with Mum combing my hair, a ritual for which I have to sit down on the second-h&, floral-patterned settee, & lean forward, like I`m presenting myself for execution.” For Sathnam Sanghera, growing up in Wolverhampton in the eighties was a confusing business. On the one h&, these were the heady days of George Michael mix-tapes, Dallas on TV &, if he was lucky, the occasional Bounty Bar. On the other, there was his wardrobe of tartan smocks, his 30p-an-hour job at the local sewing factory & the ongoing challenge of how to tie the perfect top-knot. & then there was his family, whose strange & often difficult behaviour he took for granted until, at the age of twenty-four, Sathnam made a discovery that changed everything he ever thought he knew about them. Equipped with breathtaking courage & a glorious sense of humour, he embarks on a journey into their extraordinary past
- from his father`s harsh life in rural Punjab to the steps of the Wolverhampton Tourist Office
- trying to make sense of a life lived among secrets. Praise for ” The Boy with the Topknot”: ”I absolutely loved it. Heartbreaking & wonderful. He writes beautifully”. (Maggie O` Farrell). ” Could not be more enjoyable, engaging or moving”. (” Observer”). ” Tragic, funny & disturbing. It will challenge you, & may even change you”. (Carole Angier, ” Independent”). Sathnam Sanghera was born in 1976. He is an award-winning journalist who was previously chief feature writer at ” The Financial Times” & now works for ” The Times”. He lives in London. Published in hardback as ” If You Don`t Know Me by Now”.