Lowborn
Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns
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Lowborn
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Narrated by:
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Kerry Hudson
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By:
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Kerry Hudson
About this listen
Random House presents the audiobook edition of Lowborn by Kerry Hudson.
What does it really mean to be poor in Britain today? A prizewinning novelist revisits her childhood and some of the country's most deprived towns
'When every day of your life you have been told you have nothing of value to offer, that you are worth nothing to society, can you ever escape that sense of being ‘lowborn’ no matter how far you’ve come?’
Kerry Hudson is proudly working class but she was never proudly poor. The poverty she grew up in was all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanising. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended nine primary schools and five secondaries, living in B&Bs and council flats. She scores eight out of ten on the Adverse Childhood Experiences measure of childhood trauma.
Twenty years later, Kerry’s life is unrecognisable. She’s a prizewinning novelist who has travelled the world. She has a secure home, a loving partner and access to art, music, film and books. But she often finds herself looking over her shoulder, caught somehow between two worlds.
Lowborn is Kerry’s exploration of where she came from, revisiting the towns she grew up in to try to discover what being poor really means in Britain today and whether anything has changed. She also journeys into the hardest regions of her own childhood, because sometimes in order to move forwards we first have to look back.
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Critic reviews
"I loved Lowborn.... A powerful exploration of Hudson's working-class childhood and its legacy." (David Nicholls, author of One Day)
"Elegant, compassionate and powerful...tells the hidden story of what it means to be poor in Britain today." (Charlotte Heathcote)
"Compelling, fascinating and well-written, undeniably grim but peppered with humour and tenderness...Hudson demonstrates that only by lifting whole communities out of poverty...can we hope to avoid consigning children and young people like her – vulnerable and blameless – to the worst of lives." (Kit de Waal)
What listeners say about Lowborn
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 22-10-20
Powerful, compassionate and moving
This is a fantastic listen, but very sad in places. Kerry Hudson is a very likeable narrator and tells thd story well and without sensationalist blame throwing. You can't help but feel desperately sad for the child she was and for the many children still growing up in similar circumstances - or worse.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- JoePublic
- 20-02-22
Outstanding writing and performance
A heart-searing memoir of grinding poverty and what it means to grow up believing you’re worthless. Kerry’s calmly narrated, unflinching, clear eyed perspective, gives voice to lived experiences I’ve struggled to articulate. If you grew up feeling ‘less than’ for reasons beyond your control, this book will speak to you. Hope and strength reside here too.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- B J Irish
- 18-05-24
Beautifully read by the author
A moving story and such an interesting perspective to revisit the cities you lived in as a child and adolescent. Thank you for sharing your narrative.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Jo
- 20-05-19
outstanding
absolutely outstanding, thought provoking and memory jogging. No matter what class you identify with you Should read this book.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Samantha Kirk
- 30-04-21
Full of admiration for this author.
Incredible story so movingly told. Thank you for sharing your experience, I feel privileged to have listened to your journey.
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- Nathaniel Mills
- 11-06-19
Read this now!
Wow! Thanks Kerry. Tragic but uplifting in equal measure.
Special note for the narration. I felt the author reading this added something to the whole experience. Ps Kerry have you considered a career in narration?!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Mr K.
- 02-07-19
A must read/listen
Beautifully read and written by the author and seriously thought provoking while keeping you engaged.
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- Henry Black
- 07-07-19
Made me angry, sad and hopeful
I bought the audiobook. This is a memoir. Hearing the author speak her story was important to me. I made the right choice. It was easier to visualise the girl in the story, even though it was the now-woman telling it.
I admit that the lump in my throat appeared during the Prologue and never really went away. But this isn't just about looking back on hardship, it's about how a survivor made it. How she was thrown into an ocean before she could swim and refused to drown, despite the waves.
I already know Kerry Hudson is a wonderful writer. But this...her honesty - her plea for understanding that behaviour, no matter how much it is against 'normal' society, has its roots in something. Few people are genuinely bad, but everyone does bad things. It's almost always an angry response or a cry for help. That's what I took from this. Kerry, I'm sure, has hurt people with her behaviour as she was trying to learn how to swim in an ocean she never asked to be in. But she wasn't trying to hurt anyone. As is usually the case, the person she hurt most was herself. But through it all, she seems to have learned how not to hurt herself. But to love herself, which she so clearly deserves to.
This book made me angry about how the fortunate blame the unfortunate for their own ills. Even though those ills are often imposed on them by the super-fortunate. As a recent meme, I saw on Twitter states: "The problem is that the people who earn £1,000 an hour have convinced the people who earn £12 an hour that it's the people who earn £7.83 an hour who are the problem". Of course, those who are on benefits, the Lowborn, are hated even more. Thanks to Kerry, some of their story has been told. I just hope that those on £12 an hour spend some of their earnings on this book and learn a bit more about the people they pass by in the street.
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- Lorna D.
- 16-05-22
Lowborn
Love this ! Have the book but this brings it to life ! It’s so personal and uplifting-
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- Jacimac
- 25-01-24
Honest reflections on childhood poverty
The author narrates her story in the most beautifully almost soporific voice.  She lays out the bear facts of her mothers alcoholism and neglect of her children. At times it is shocking and one wonders how any child can reach their full potential without any form of stability when they are moved from place to place experiencing bullying and complete lack of self esteem. Nevertheless It had an upbeat tone, hopeful despite the hopelessness of some situations, asking where we head in the future to try to avoid these domestic pitfalls. extremely highly recommended read.
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