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Grand

Grand

Becoming My Mother’s Daughter

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Quick-witted, charismatic and generous; angry, vicious and hurt; in pubs all over Cork City, Noelle McCarthy's mother Carol rages against her life and everything she's lost.

As soon as she can, in the early years of the millennium, Noelle runs away. All the way to New Zealand. Yet, the demons of the past give chase and Noelle seems fated to throw away her future, just like her mother. Somehow, she gets out of the hole and makes a new life. But then Carol gets sick, and finally it's time to face the past and everything that's waiting back home.

Grand is a dazzlingly honest memoir about becoming a modern woman.

'Desperately funny, hysterically sad, so beautiful and so humane. All of life is in it' Meg Mason

©2023 Noelle McCarthy (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

  • A natural storyteller with a Sedaris-like eye for black humour. There are sharp splinters of comic relief . . . compelling and nuanced
    Edel Coffey, Irish Times

About the author

Noelle McCarthy

Cork-born Noelle McCarthy is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. She lives in New Zealand where she and her husband make podcasts as Bird of Paradise Productions. She is the 2023 International Institute of Modern Letters writer in residence. The No 1 bestselling Grand, her debut, won the Best First Book award in the non-fiction category of the 2023 New Zealand Book Awards.
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