Publisher's Synopsis
Born a bastard to a teenage mother in the slums of 1950s' Dublin, Martha has to be a fighter from the start. As her mother moves from man to man, they live hand-to-mouth in squalid, freezing tenements and forced to beg for food. But just when it seems things can't get any worse, her mother meets Jackster. Despite her trials, Martha is a child with an irrepressible spirit and a wit beyond her years. She tells her story without an ounce of self-pity, re-creating a lost era in which the shadow of the Catholic church loomed large and if you didn't work, you didn't eat. Her remarkable voice will remain with you long after the last line.
