When Emma Brockes was ten years old, her mother said 'One day I will tell you the story of my life and you will be amazed.' Growing up in a tranquil English village, Emma knew very little of her mother's life before her. She knew Paula had grown up in South Africa and had seven siblings. She had been told stories about deadly snakes and hailstones the size of golf balls. There was mention, once, of a trial. But most of the past was a mystery. When her mother dies of cancer, Emma - by then a successful journalist at the Guardian - is free to investigate the untold story. Her search begins in the Colindale library but then takes her to South Africa, to the extended family she has never met and their accounts of a childhood so different to her own. She encounters versions of the life her mother chose to leave behind - and realises what a gift her mother gave her. Part investigation, part travelogue, part elegy, "She Left Me the Gun" is a gripping, funny and clear-eyed account of a writer's search for her mother's story.
- ISBN13 9780571275823
- Publish Date 4 April 2013 (first published 18 March 2013)
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 29 March 2017
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 304
- Language English
- URL https://allenandunwin.com/browse/books/9780571275823