Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way
The new novel about family history, love and second chances from the Booker Prize longlisted author
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF AUTHOR OF THE YEAR AT THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS
The deeply moving story of the O’Connor family, its troubled past in the West of Ireland, and a love story of second chances from the Booker-longlisted author of How to Build a Boat
'A haunting powerful page turner that will have you in its thrall' GABRIEL BYRNE
'One of Ireland’s shining literary stars...an energetic and vivid voice' THE TIMES
‘Full of humanity, a story for our times’ MARY COSTELLO
‘I loved this book’ LOUISE KENNEDY
‘Superb’ IRISH TIMES
Claire O’Connor’s life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved back home to the rugged West of Ireland to care for her dying father. She spends her days getting lost online, going to work and minding her own business. But Claire is thrown back into a love she thought she’d left behind when Tom unexpectedly moves nearby, stirring up haunting memories trapped within the walls of the old family house. As the secrets of the past are revealed, Claire must confront whether she can escape her history to make a future for herself.
'This book touched my soul' KATRIONA O'SULLIVAN
'I believe this is the best book of the year' Oliver Callan, RTE RADIO
'Hugely powerful' DAILY MAIL
'One of Irish literature's most gifted and persuasive storytellers' SINÉAD GLEESON
'Sizzling, electric... charged with humour and anger... I loved it' JENNY MUSTARD
'Clear-eyed and deep-hearted... packs an intellectual and emotional punch' CLAIRE-LOUISE BENNETT
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Feeney (How to Build a Boat) explores an Irish family's trauma in this contemplative outing. On the heels of the sudden death of her mother and the rapid decline of her terminally ill father, Claire O'Connor leaves her longtime English boyfriend, Tom, in London, and returns to her family's isolated farmhouse outside Galway. Her reappearance after a decade coincides with the Covid-19 lockdown, and despite her past assertions that she's "done with this place," Claire, a writer and teacher, throws herself headlong into homemaking after her father's death, egged on by her compulsive watching of tradwife social media reels and accelerated by Tom's decision to rent a house nearby. Alongside the present-day narrative, Feeney unfurls the story of Claire's great-grandmother, who runs guns out of the house for the IRA in 1920, and 11-year-old Claire, who's enlisted there by her father in 1990 to help finalize the sale of a mare to be bred for the English royal family. With arresting imagery and skillful shifts in perspective, Feeney weaves together these narrative threads to gut-wrenching effect, as when Claire's father "seemed to remember the atmosphere" of a horrific event from before he was born, and the novel culminates in an avalanche of savage scenes and revelations. It's a potent drama of a family shaped by a nation in upheaval.
