Breakdown: The humane Irish Bestseller about the dark side of modern motherhood
Cathy Sweeney
Jan 2024 · Weidenfeld & Nicolson · Narrated by Gráinne Gillis
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5 hr 3 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
From the Irish Tatler's Woman of the Year for Literature and one of the AN Post Irish Book Awards's Best New Irish Writers comes a novel about one woman's decision to leave everything behind . . .
'Thrillingly relatable'
Harper's Bazaar
'This funny, thoughtful novel will resonate with lots of women'
Good Housekeeping
'You won't be able to put this down. A fascinating study of a woman who has sacrificed her dreams'
The Gloss
'A masterful account of one woman's dramatic rebellion against society's demands'
Daily Express
'A vivid portrait of a woman adrift'
Observer
Mothers are not supposed to go on road trips . . .
But one winter morning in Dublin, an ordinary woman wakes up in her ordinary home, her husband next to her in bed, her teenage children sleeping nearby. And - without thinking much about it - walks out the front door and never comes back.
So begins a journey which will take her into service stations and shopping centres, hotel bars and hairdressers - and the beds of strange men.
Until finally, forty-eight hours later, alone in a cottage in Wales, the woman faces up to what she has been ignoring inside herself, her family, modern society: signs of breakdown.
'Thrillingly relatable'
Harper's Bazaar
'This funny, thoughtful novel will resonate with lots of women'
Good Housekeeping
'You won't be able to put this down. A fascinating study of a woman who has sacrificed her dreams'
The Gloss
'A masterful account of one woman's dramatic rebellion against society's demands'
Daily Express
'A vivid portrait of a woman adrift'
Observer
Mothers are not supposed to go on road trips . . .
But one winter morning in Dublin, an ordinary woman wakes up in her ordinary home, her husband next to her in bed, her teenage children sleeping nearby. And - without thinking much about it - walks out the front door and never comes back.
So begins a journey which will take her into service stations and shopping centres, hotel bars and hairdressers - and the beds of strange men.
Until finally, forty-eight hours later, alone in a cottage in Wales, the woman faces up to what she has been ignoring inside herself, her family, modern society: signs of breakdown.
About the author
CATHY SWEENEY is a writer living in Ireland. Her short fiction has been published in the Stinging Fly, the Dublin Review, Egress, Winter Papers, Banshee and the Tangerine, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut short story collection, Modern Times, was published in 2020 and her debut novel, Breakdown, in 2024.
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