Breakdown: The humane Irish Bestseller about the dark side of modern motherhood

· Hachette UK
5.0
4 reviews
Ebook
224
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

5.0
4 reviews
Kevin Joyce
March 4, 2024
Loved it. Would definitely read more by Cathy Sweeney.
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Moya Ní Éilí
April 18, 2024
what a vivid read
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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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