Always Come Home

About Always Come Home

Accused of stealing $3million and attempting suicide, David Bloom is admitted to a psychiatric unit against his will. Misdiagnosed and prescribed incorrect medication, he will be released only if he silences the ghosts of his past and proves his sanity. With release pending, and his ghosts still beckoning, he is forced to go back to a home that only exists in his wild imagination.

In 1982, on rural Bere Island, Ireland, 17-year-old DAVID BLOOM promises a future of happiness to loving girlfriend DOLORES. However, their plans shatter when his mother ROSE commits suicide. Blamed by his father HECTOR for negligence, David escapes his father's unjustified accusation and haunting feelings of shame by fleeing to America.

                Years later David, now in his 40s, has masked his internal conflict by submerging into the frantic pace of America. Now a partner in a New York investment firm, wed to socialite LAURA, and with daughter RACHEL about to be married, David lives a pressurized life. David is hit by two events which shake him to the core: first, the accusation by business partner GARRETT LEDBETTER that he has stolen $3 million. The second, a letter received from an Irish solicitor informing him of his father's death, triggering past shame.

               Overwhelmed, at Rachel's wedding rehearsal David has a breakdown. Laura accuses him of being an alcoholic, a thief and liar. Rachel refuses to allow David to attend her wedding. Confused, hurt, and psychotic, David flees back to Ireland. There, for the first time in years, he re-enters his boyhood home. Delusional, he sees his dead mother and father and realizes he is mentally unwell. However, he becomes convinced that he can cure himself by confronting the delusions. When he meets DOLORES, his ex-girlfriend, he begs her to help. Though hurt by his abandonment, she agrees. David relives the night his mother died. He sees Rose and re-experiences his father's rage. He orders his mind to banish the ghosts of his past. But they will not leave him. David is deeply disturbed when discovering they actually react to his pleas to let him prove his father was wrong: he was not responsible for his mother's death.

               In New York, Rachel tracks her father to Ireland. With Laura, she journeys to County Cork because they know David can no longer help himself and are determined to do it for him.

               Always Come Home is the author's second novel for an adult market.

What Readers Say:

Tamara Curtin Niemi

Always Comes Home hit so many notes. First my mom is schizophrenic, currently in a mental correctional facility in the US and will likely never leave; second Mikhail Bulgakov was the subject of my PhD dissertation, so the blending and travelling between two worlds was a familiar vehicle, and oh, that frustration of the system really screwing people and their friends and family too.

Patrick Bloom

My son suffered from a nervous breakdown. He was mis-diagnosed as being a threat to himself or others and thrown (illegally, in my opinion) into a mental health facility I would rather not name. There, he spent over 2 months while I fought the system to have him released. I was so tired and angry, I was the one who needed treatment. Always Comes Home resonated with me. It demonstrates how those we love are never listened to: not when others believe they are mentally sick. Thank you for this book. You give me hope that the system CAN BE CHANGED AS IT MUST BE. Not only where I live, but ALL OVER THE WORLD.