Subtitle from cover.

"This is a book about feelings, family, sex, and Ireland - but don't tell Amelia that. She's the one growing up in the mad family, in the mad society, who doesn't want to know what's going on. But things are going on: eight year-olds collecting very peculiar treasures; babies who might just be, or not be, bombs; school girls bringing guns into schoolyards; and, of course, lots of food and bad, bad sex." "If Amelia is to live she needs to change. Can she, though, in a place where people don't know how to look after themselves, and so wouldn't know how to look after one another?"--Jacket.

Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, 2001.

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