Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve

Sharp, sad and romantic, Dannie Abse's reminisces tell of the private fortunes of a Jewish family in Cardiff amid the troubled tapestry of the times. Abse's famous autobiographical novel captures the enchantment of childhood and the first poignant problems of adolesence. Abse skillfully interweaves public and private themes so that the fortunes of a Jewish family in Wales are set against the backcloth of the period - unemployment, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini and the Spanish civil war.