Bright Burning Things
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4.0 • 7 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
'Absolutely dazzling' Marian Keyes
'On every page there are little shimmering bombs' Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women
'Quietly devastating . . . Reminded me repeatedly of Shuggie Bain' Observer
AN OBSERVER, GRAZIA, IRISH TIMES AND IRISH INDEPENDENT HIGHLIGHT FOR 2021
Being Tommy's mother is too much for Sonya.
Too much love, too much fear, too much longing for the cool wine she gulps from the bottle each night. Because Sonya is burning the fish fingers, and driving too fast, and swimming too far from the shore, and Tommy's life is in her hands.
Once there was the thrill of a London stage, a glowing acting career, fast cars, handsome men. But now there are blackouts and bare cupboards, and her estranged father showing up uninvited. There is Mrs O'Malley spying from across the road. There is the risk of losing Tommy – forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Irish writer Harding's blistering U.S. debut, a former London stage actress finds her life in Dublin derailed by disappointment and alcoholism. Sonya is the single mother of four-year-old Tommy, and, one day while playing with him, she gets blackout drunk, goes for a dip in the ocean, and wakes up the next morning with neither son nor dog in sight. Panicked, she wanders the neighborhood asking people, "Have you seen a big black dog and a little boy?" As it turns out, both are fine, but Sonya isn't, and her father sends her to rehab. She promises herself not to drink around her son again, though that pledge will be disastrously hard to keep. Harding brilliantly captures both the hilarity and wisdom of Sonya's 12-step program, with her time in rehab poignantly complicated by Sonya's separation from Tommy and her fear she might not be reunited with him. When Sonya views the world through sober eyes, the real struggle starts, and she movingly confronts the traumas that helped put the bottle to her lips in the first place. This unflinching portrait of a troubled, tender soul takes readers to the depths of the human heart.
