Without Warning and Only Sometimes: 'Extraordinary. Moving and heartwarming' The Sunday Times

Midlands, Memoirs

Imprint

Tinder Press
- Paperback Aug 29, 2023 | 9781472284853 | RRP $26.99 Buy Now
- Trade Paperback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284846 | RRP $32.99 Buy Now
- Hardback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284839 | RRP $45.00 Buy Now
- e-Book Aug 18, 2022 | 9781472284860 | RRP $14.99 Buy Now
Imprint

Tinder Press
- Paperback Aug 29, 2023 | 9781472284853 | RRP $26.99 Buy Now
- Trade Paperback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284846 | RRP $32.99 Buy Now
- Hardback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284839 | RRP $45.00 Buy Now
- e-Book Aug 18, 2022 | 9781472284860 | RRP $14.99 Buy Now
Imprint

Tinder Press
- Paperback Aug 29, 2023 | 9781472284853 | RRP $26.99 Buy Now
- Trade Paperback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284846 | RRP $32.99 Buy Now
- Hardback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284839 | RRP $45.00 Buy Now
- e-Book Aug 18, 2022 | 9781472284860 | RRP $14.99 Buy Now
Imprint

Tinder Press
- Paperback Aug 29, 2023 | 9781472284853 | RRP $26.99 Buy Now
- Trade Paperback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284846 | RRP $32.99 Buy Now
- Hardback Nov 22, 2022 | 9781472284839 | RRP $45.00 Buy Now
- e-Book Aug 18, 2022 | 9781472284860 | RRP $14.99 Buy Now

A painful, heartfelt, brilliantly funny childhood memoir from the acclaimed and bestselling author of MY NAME IS LEON

'Vivid and compelling and so moving... Kit's depiction of her parents' dynamic is both painful and comforting to read' Marian Keyes
AS BROADCAST ON BBC RADIO 4
From the award-winning author of MY NAME IS LEON comes a childhood memoir set to become a classic: stinging, warm-hearted, and true.

Kit de Waal grew up in a household of opposites and extremes. Her haphazard mother rarely cooked, forbade Christmas and birthdays, worked as a cleaner, nurse and childminder sometimes all at once and believed the world would end in 1975. Meanwhile, her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean, cooked elaborate meals on a whim and splurged money they didn't have on cars, suits and shoes fit for a prince. Both of her parents were waiting for paradise. It never came.

Caught between three worlds, Irish, Caribbean and British in 1960s Birmingham, Kit and her brothers and sisters knew all the words to the best songs, caught sticklebacks in jam jars and braved hunger and hellfire until they could all escape.

WITHOUT WARNING AND ONLY SOMETIMES is a story of an extraordinary childhood and how a girl who grew up in house where the Bible was the only book on offer went on to discover a love of reading that inspires her to this day

Praise for Without Warning and Only Sometimes: 'Extraordinary. Moving and heartwarming' The Sunday Times

Extraordinary . . . De Waal has a gift for the deft detail that will bring a story or character alive . . .Moving and heartwarming - Sunday Times
An astonishingly good evocation of the dream and reality of migration to postwar Birmingham - Observer
Intelligent, angry and sometimes very funny - Scotsman
A delightful and harrowing book. I can't think of another since Edmund Gosse's Father and Son that gives such a well-written child's-eye view of an upbringing in a suffocating Christian sect . . . I highly recommend - Irish Times

Kit de Waal

Kit de Waal was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother, who was a childminder and foster carer and a Caribbean father. She worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law, was a magistrate for several years and sits on adoption panels. She used to advise Social Services on the care of foster children, and has written training manuals on adoption, foster care and judgecraft for members of the judiciary. Her writing has received numerous awards including the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2014 and 2015 and the SI Leeds Literary Reader's Choice Prize 2014 and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. MY NAME IS LEON, her first novel was published in 2016 and shortlisted for the Costa Book Award. She has two children and lives in the West Midlands.