WHEN WE WERE ROMANS: A NOVEL

Book ID/图书代码： 11701208B22049

English Summary/英文概要： Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family. He carefully watches over his willful little sister, Jemima, and his mother, Hannah. When Hannah becomes convinced that their estranged father is stalking them, the family flees London and heads for Rome, where Hannah lived happily as a young woman. For Lawrence, fascinated by stories of popes and emperors, Rome is an adventure. Though they are short of money, and move from home to home, staying with his mother’s old friends, little by little their new life seems to be taking shape. But the trouble that brought them to Italy will not quite leave them in peace.
Narrated in Lawrence’s perfectly rendered voice, When We Were Romans powerfully evokes the emotions and confusions of childhood—the triumphs, the jealousies, the fears, and the love. Even as everything he understands is turned upside down, Lawrence remains determined to keep his family together, viewing the world from a perspective that is at once endearingly innocent and preternaturally wise.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 九岁的劳伦斯是家中的小顶梁柱，他必须要照顾任性的妹妹杰米玛和妈妈汉娜。当汉娜确认一直疏远的丈夫在排挤他们时，她便带着孩子们离开伦敦，来到了罗马。在那里，汉娜重新恢复了活力，开始了愉快的生活。而劳伦斯则被罗马教皇和帝王的故事深深吸引住了，罗马对于他来说，是一个冒险和奇遇。尽管他们因为生活窘困，而不断的搬家，和妈妈的老朋友住在一起，他们的生活看起来似乎已经形成了这样固定的模式。但是麻烦却并未因此而远离他们…
以劳伦斯的口吻缓缓叙述这整个故事，本书唤起了童年时代复杂的情感----胜利，恐惧，以及爱。
尽管他所知道的一切都已被颠覆，劳伦斯仍旧努力地把家人团结在一起，以一种可爱，无辜，却又异常敏感的视角去看待这整个世界。(zh)

Awards/获奖情况："Like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird and Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, young Lawrence brings readers into his world, powerfully connecting us to the drama of his childhood.”---Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides and Beach Music
“I fell in love with Lawrence, an unusually touching and convincing child protagonist. Kneale’s astonishingly observant, humane writing is heartbreaking.”---Charlotte Mendelson, author of When We Were Bad
“Think of the delicate balancing act involved in creating a child narrator–a 9-year-old, say, with a single mother and a baby sister. The boy has to be cute, of course, and also wise in unexpected ways, fragile, protective, funny, solemn and, well, childlike. Matthew Kneale achieves all that brilliantly in When We Were Romans, then gives it another turn of the screw.... [T]he scary truth…is that it’s our valiant young narrator who needs protecting.”---The New York Observer
“How much Lawrence understands of his family’s tribulations is the book’s central, poignant mystery; the consummate artistry with which Kneale captures this child’s voice, its chief pleasure.”---Entertainment Weekly
“The journey through Lawrence’s complex mind is touching and delightful, mostly because he is such an unswerving authentic little boy…. His voice is a voice to remember.”---The Seattle Times
“If you enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, definitely pick up When We Were Romans. It will make you thank God for children in a world made absurd by adults.”---St. Petersbusrg Times
“There have been plenty of coming-of-age stories that pit a child’s innocence against the inexorable force of a parent’s insanity, but perhaps none that has captured the tension, confusion and ultimate loss of that innocence any better than When We Were Romans.”---Bookpage
“Lawrence is a narrator extraordinaire.”---The Christian Science Monitor
“Matthew Kneale is an extraordinary British writer whose new novel is easy to admire because of its artistry…. The quality that sets Kneale apart is his talent for impersonation…. As Lawrence describes it, [his and his mum’s] ’adventure’ is an attempt to flee the vaguely articulated menace posed by Lawrence’s estranged father…. Their enemies might be real or they might be imagined, but what’s absolutely true for Lawrence is his unshakable belief in the conspiracy of his and his mother’s love. ’Conspire’ means ’to breathe together,’ and so he does with Mum, and so we do with him.”---Washington Post Book World
“This is the novel that Patrick McCabe’s over-praised the Butcher Boy ought to have been, redeemed by Kneale’s sure-handed restraint. One of the best explorations of a child’s mind and heart in recent fiction, and its talented author’s best book yet.”---Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Kneale, who won the Whitbread for English Passengers, returns with a tale narrated by fiery, precocious, pitch-perfect Lawrence, who at nine years old struggles with being at once a normal kid and, with his parents’ estrangement, the man of the house.... As small incongruities pile up between what Lawrence sees and how he interprets what happens to him, the family’s hurtlings across Europe and the city take on a shattered poignancy.”---Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[A] haunting story of a family in disintegration.... Kneale has created a marvelously engaging and believable voice for Lawrence, whose account is at once heartbreaking and humorous.... Idiosyncratic, original, and altogether memorable.”---Booklist (starred review)
“This narrative is heartbreakingly moving.... Full of restraint and artistic integrity, this is a poignant, haunting and lovely novel.”---The Guardian

About the Author/作者介绍： MATTHEW KNEALE was born in London in 1960, the son of two writers. He is author of numerous prize-winning novels, including the bestselling ENGLISH PASSENGERS, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and was short-listed for the Booker Prize. He lives with his wife and two children in Rome.
马修•尼尔（MATTHEW KNEALE），1960年出生于伦敦，是两位作家之子。他是许多获奖作品的作者，包括曾获惠特布雷德年度图书奖，并被提名布克奖的畅销书《英国旅客ENGLISH PASSENGERS》，他现今与妻子和两个儿子住在罗马。

Format:HARDCOVER

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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