Quicksand Tales: The Misadventures of Keggie Carew - Hardcover

Keggie Carew has lived in West Cork, Barcelona, Texas, Auckland and London. Before writing, her career was in contemporary art. Keggie lives in Wiltshire, south-west England, with her husband Jonathan. She is the author of Dadland, which won the 2016 Costa Award for Biography.
keggiecarew.co.uk

“Dadland brings to mind Helen MacDonald's H is for Hawk in the way it soars off in surprising directions, teaches you things you didn't know, and ambushes your emotions.” (―Heller McAlpin, NPR.org)

"I was so absorbed and moved by Dadland I haven't been able to read anything else. It is beautifully written―deft and funny and so tender―but I have also come away knowing more about history, more about dementia, more about men, more about daughters, more about love, family, sheds, diaries, an inquisitive mind and peeing in plastic bottles. I loved it." (―Rachel Joyce)

"Oh this book. Beautiful and fierce and brave. Memory and war and family and loss and, well, wow." (―Helen Macdonald)

"The Dadland of Keggie Carew's first book is a vast expanse indeed . . . To understand his military history required archival deepdiving, while plumbing the (relatively) peaceful years involved sifting through diaries and letters, sorting out generations of mismatched marriages (temperament, class), and engaging in capacious acts of empathy and imagination . . . Part memoir, part biography, part military history, Dadland is also a lovingly unconventional elegy for a generation." (―Dawn Raffel, San Francisco Chronicle)

“Dadland is a rare amalgam: It's a memoir of the days her father Tom Carew spent as one of the dashing, daring "Jedburghs" during World War II . . . The author pieces together a joint memoir/biography that tugs at the heartstrings even as it describes real feats of bravery, such as Tom's parachuting into Occupied France with a tiny team to defy Nazis, and his incredible work in trying to maintain a free Burma." (―Literary Hub, "14 Books to Read This March")

“Scintillating.” (―Publishers Weekly (starred review))

"Carew's memoir about her father follows a winding, extraordinary path through the thickets of dementia and the jungles of Burma―a thrilling, bloody, educative history of Churchill's Special Operations Executive (AKA the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) in the second world war combined ingeniously with a tender, moving, funny portrait of the author's father." (―Nick Hornby)

"Energetic. . . Carew's vivid narrative takes readers briskly through the horrors and excitement of war, portraying Tom as a vigorous, charismatic soldier fully in his element . . . Carew's evocative blend of biography and memoir maintains a warmly clear-eyed tone while taking the full measure of dysfunctional and disappointed lives . . . A scintillating portrait of Britain's Greatest Generation at war and uneasy peace." (―Publishers Weekly (starred review))