Growing Paganism: Books for Pagan Children: Elementary (I-L)

Growing Paganism: Books for Pagan Children: Elementary (I-L): Previous It can be difficult to find books for your Pagan children to read. You want books that teach them your values, and maybe somet...

Piggy Monk Square - Reviews

REVIEWS FOR PIGGY MONK SQUARE

‘A stunningly well-written novel. I didn’t want it to end. Tense, joyous, terrifying, comic, tender, magic and tragic – just like childhood itself.’

 -Willy Russell

‘Piggy Monk Square is unbearably tense and utterly believable. The voice of its young heroine is so beguiling and convincing that you feel that you've met her. And then the story forces you to share her terrible secret. Like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle: illuminating and satisfying.’

-Frank Cottrell Boyce

‘Nine-year-old Rebecca, chirpy as her nickname, "Sparra", is the lively narrator of this disturbing child's-eye view of 1970s Toxteth, over which the spectres of poverty and police brutality hang. Her mum and dad quarrel and she hates school, where the sadistic Mr. Shelby hits her for misdemeanors. Sparra and her friend Debbie get their kicks roaming the streets, fighting their arch-enemies Uffo and Lippo, laughing at the drunken antics of crazy Harold and his wife with their dead baby's pram, and running from the man they call Stabber the psycho-killer. Their favourite place is the cellar of a bombed-out house in Piggy Monk Square, but that is spoilt when a scary cop warns them away. The tables are turned when the cop falls into the cellar and lies there injured. The real punch of this slice-of-life tale comes from the appalling isolation of Sparra's childhood. Grown-ups don't listen to the likes of Sparra. The punch leaves you gasping.’

 -Rachel Hore – The Guardian

‘Capturing the vividness of childhood and the exuberant cadence of Liverpudlian childhood slang. It’s a subtle but compulsively readable novel, combining the bittersweet provincial nostalgia of, say, Meera Syal’s Anita and Me, with a dark and subversive parable that has echoes of Whistle down the Wind.’

 -Laurence Phelan - Independent On Sunday

‘A gripping, intriguing page-turner which bears testimony to the craft of Jolliffe… One of its most appealing facets is the authentic use of language which at times mirrors the first person appeal of the autistic teenager in Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident Of the Dog in the Night Time. Grace’s Liverpool childhood has helped her create a truly believable character in her book. It’s also laced with some wry scouse humour too.’

 -Mike Chapple - Daily Post

‘Within a very few pages this novel draws you in. Piggy Monk Square deserves success and would certainly make a great film.’

 -Maria Ross - Publishing News

Inspiration for Piggy Monk Square

The idea of writing this book emerged long before I actually wrote it and it was at the forefront of my mind when I returned to college as a mature student to study film and television.

I had a long bus journey to get to the college so I began using this 'down' time to write Piggy Monk Square.  I remember I wrote in some cheap yellow notebooks I got free every time I spent more than £5 in the local supermarket!

THE EDGE

At the time I as a very skint single mother and had no computer at home so I used the college computer to type it up at break times but I wasn’t happy with the results. I couldn’t get the central spine of the story right and I knew I needed more time to focus on it.

I became very busy trying to juggle my college work with free-lance writing jobs and sometimes having to resort to door-to-door selling to get the money to pay the electric bills. (Worst job ever - although I did sell a magazine to 'The Edge' from U2 one time.) In the end I had to leave the book aside and get on with everything else.

THE ONE THAT WOULDN'T GO AWAY

But, the story became one that would not go away, no matter how hard I tried and there was part of me didn't want to write it. Eventually I got round to doing it, and in keeping with the atmosphere of the book, I re-wrote and typed up the story in a damp bare-brick shed at the back of my house in County Wicklow.

Although it is a work of pure fiction, there was a specific incident that inspired the book. Like the book, it all happened in a derelict house in Toxteth. I was around nine or ten years old. My little friends and I had made a hiding place so we could play hide and seek, eat sweets, and swap comics away from adults. 

One day, we were engrossed in reading our comic when two policemen marched in to the building - they found us, searched us and threatened dire consequences if they found us there again.

These two grown men were rough as they searched us, and verbally intimidating. They treated us small children like we were hardened criminals.

JUST LIKE SPARRA

Just like my fictional character, Sparra, we were absolutely terrified. Even worse, the police also confiscated our sweets. Unbelievable now but sadly true. They were bad times for that area of Liverpool.

I had nightmares about these men for weeks. Like Sparra, I could never tell my Mum because she would have been annoyed that I was playing in the derelict house.

BAD POLICEMEN

Although the behaviour of these two policemen was outrageous I have to thank them – without that unforgettable incident I might never have written Piggy Monk Square.

Piggy Monk Square went on to be published by Tindal Street Press and was optioned by Willy Russell’s film company on the same day as the launch. It was also adapted for Radio by RTE’s ‘The Book On One.'

‘Piggy Monk Square’ was shortlisted for the ‘Commonwealth Writer's Prize and was on BBC’s recommended ‘Raw Reads’ list.

Later, Willy Russell commissioned me to adapt and write a full-length feature film script of Piggy Monk Square.

Like many optioned books it never did get made into a film. I wasn’t too disappointed because my own experience in the film world had already taught me that very few scripts get made. Still, it's always nice to dream...