The childhood world of Hugo Hamilton is a confused place: His father, a brutal Irish nationalist, demands his children speak Gaelic at home whilst his mother, a softly spoken German emigrant who escaped Nazi Germany at the beginning of the war, encourages them to speak German. All Hugo wants to do is speak English. English is, after all, what the other children in Dublin speak. English is what they use when they hunt down Hugo (or 'Eichmann' as they dub him) in the streets of Dublin, and English is what they use when they bring him to trial and execute him at a mock seaside court. Out of this fear and confusion Hugo tries to build a balanced view of the world, to turn the twisted logic of what he is told into truth. It is a journey that ends in liberation but not before this little boy has uncovered the dark and long-buried secrets that lie at the bottom of his parents' wardrobe.In one of the finest books to have emerged from Ireland since Patrick McCabe's THE BUTCHER BOY and Seamus Deane's READING IN THE DARK, acclaimed novelist Hugo Hamilton has finally written his own story. The son of a German mother and an Irish father, Hugo Hamilton grew up in Dublin in the 1950s wearing "lederhosen and Aran sweaters, smelling of rough wool and new leather, Irish on top and German below." His family spoke both German and Irish, but English was strictly forbidden--even uttering a few words of the cursed language was enough to earn an often brutal punishment from their father, a staunch Irish nationalist. His father maintained that "your home is your language" and insisted that they be a model Irish family and an example for others to follow. Hamilton and his siblings were not even permitted to play with children who did not speak Irish exclusively--a particular problem in a country where English is the primary language. Ironically, he was taunted mercilessly for his German heritage and children jeered him with cries of "Eichmann" and "Heil Hitler." He was even put on "trial" once by a gang of kids who sentenced him death by snowball firing squad. This confusing quest to discover his identity and to gain an understanding of his family history is at the heart of The Speckled People , a profoundly touching and beautifully written memoir. His parents' secrecy concerning their own pasts only exacerbated his frustration, forcing Hamilton to cling to fragments of information gleaned secretly from hidden photographs and buried family relics. Written from the perspective of a child, Hamilton captures his feelings of confusion, guilt, and fear convincingly and with much humor and insight. Full of poetic passages, sharp observations, and the kind of subtle epiphanies that are best expressed by a child, the book is a joy to read. "When you're small you know nothing and when you grow up there are things you don't want to know," he writes. This memoir is Hamilton's attempt to reconcile the two. --Shawn Carkonen As his father made quite clear to him, Hamilton was a "speckled person," someone partly from Ireland and partly from somewhere else. His defiantly Irish nationalist father insisted that Irish be spoken in the home. His native German mother, however, spoke German, and Hugo wanted to speak only the English of Dublin's streets and to be like everyone else. It wasn't easy, not when the neighborhood kids called him "Eichmann" and his older brother "Hitler." Rather than an account of his growing up and getting along in the world after leaving the family nest, his memoir depicts moments in his life as a troubled youngster who didn't know precisely who he was or where he belonged, and also how parents can damage their children despite the best of intentions, can devastate their notions of culture, language, and identity. Fortunately, by the end of the book, the youthful Hamilton has learned to be at peace with himself. June Sawyers Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “An astonishing achievement...a landmark in Irish nonfiction…a masterpiece.” (Washington Post) “A fine reminder that there are many ways of being Irish.” (New York Newsday) “Hamilton’s most successful book to date, after building up a fine reputation as a novelist.” (Irish Voice) “Unlike most Irish memoirs, this one is devoid of sentimentality. Which doesn’t make it any the less heartrending. ” (Philadelphia Inquirer) “A complex and layered story, intriguingly different from all those other Irish-childhood memoirs.” (Orlando Sentinel) “Never clichéd, thanks largely to Hamilton’s frankly poetic language and masterful portait of childhood…a beautiful memoir.” (Publishers Weekly) “An astonishing account, both delicate and strong, of great issues of twentieth-century Europe, modern Ireland, and family everywhere.” (Nuala O'Faolain) “A wonderful, subtle, problematic and humane book....about Ireland...about a particular family...about alternatives and complexities anywhere.” (Irish Times) “Evocative, agitating and inspiriting, Speckled