{
"id": 357944,
"slug": "the-boy-with-the-topknot-sathnam-sanghera",
"nstc": null,
"title": "The Boy with the Topknot",
"subtitle": null,
"collection_title": null,
"collection_part_number": null,
"annotation": null,
"description": "The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton is a hilarious and heart-rending reinvention of the modern British memoir. It's 1979, I'm three years old, and like all breakfast times during my youth it begins with Mum combing my hair, a ritual for which I have to sit down on the second-hand, floral-patterned settee, and lean forward, like I'm presenting myself for execution. For Sathnam Sanghera, growing up in Wolverhampton in the eighties was a confusing business. On the one hand, these were the heady days of George Michael mix-tapes, Dallas on TV and, if he was lucky, the occasional Bounty Bar. On the other, there was his wardrobe of tartan smocks, his 30p-an-hour job at the local sewing factory and the ongoing challenge of how to tie the perfect top-knot. And then there was his family, whose strange and often difficult behaviour he took for granted until, at the age of twenty-four, Sathnam made a discovery that changed everything he ever thought he knew about them. Equipped with breathtaking courage and a glorious sense of humour, he embarks on a journey into their extraordinary past - from his father's harsh life in rural Punjab to the steps of the Wolverhampton Tourist Office - trying to make sense of a life lived among secrets.",
"additional_content": null,
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"imprint": null,
"language_code": "eng",
"original_language_code": null,
"page_count": null,
"duration_seconds": null,
"publication_date_first": "2009-01-01",
"publication_date_latest": "2009-01-01",
"cover_url": null,
"editions": [],
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"rating_average": null,
"ratings_distribution": {
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},
"created_at": "2025-09-19T13:27:56+00:00",
"updated_at": "2025-11-08T00:28:52+00:00",
"publisher": {
"id": 4181,
"slug": "penguin-uk",
"name": "Penguin UK",
"created_at": "2025-09-19T13:08:37+00:00",
"updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:10:59+00:00"
},
"contributors": [],
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"tags": [],
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}