Publisher's Synopsis
"Phil doesn't like physical affection. She doesn't love you because you don't exist. She doesn't care if you have something important coming up. A busy week, a daunting appointment, a divorce, because she believes the world is going to end in the morning. Every morning."
Having grown up visiting her grandmother in various psychiatric hospitals, Molly Hennigan began writing about the gaps in and intimacies of her relationship with this matriarch. Tracing the organic path of her grandmother's experience to her great-grandmother's time in Irish metal hospitals, she explores her own family trauma and what it means to be an unconventional woman in a society that values conformity.
'It is written with wisdom and fearlessness, it is lyrical and compassionate, and reminds me of Annie Ernaux in its clarity and intelligence. It is a sincerely important work for Ireland right now' -- Niamh Campbell ― author of This Happy and We Were Young
