After Phoenix

After Phoenix is a darkly comic tale of grief, love, friendship and how the humour and absurdity of family life can conquer all.


January 1974. The miners are on strike and Britain is in chaos. When 19-year-old Phoenix Jacobs is killed riding the motor bike his father, JJ, helped him to buy, his family is devastated. His mother, Katherine, blames her husband for their son’s death. Her mental health deteriorates and she is admitted to the local psychiatric hospital. Grief-stricken, journalist JJ, moves into the garden shed, refusing to move back into the house until Katherine comes home, and sublimates his pain by turning focus to the forthcoming general election. Meanwhile, their 15-year-old daughter, Penny, left to her own devices, struggles to maintain a semblance of normality. It’s hard to imagine what can possibly reunite them…


‘Martine McDonagh writes simply, sparingly, intelligently and unsentimentally about big and small things.’ Stephen May, Costa-Prize shortlisted author of Life! Death! Prizes! and Wake Up Happy Every Day.


'Despite beginning with a tragedy, this book is never entirely without hope and is a powerful portrait of grief and how time heals. Powerful stuff.' - Annabel's House of Books 


'After Phoenix is a raw, emotive portrayal of a family pushed to its limits by grief.' - Lizzie Enfield, author of Living With It. 


'A great read.' - Araminta Hall, author of Everything and Nothing, and Dot.