Author(s): Cathy Sweeney

General Fiction

From one of Ireland's most provocative and admired writers comes a story of rage and reckoning, joy and transformation, and one woman's decision to leave everything behind.

One winter morning, in contemporary Dublin, a middle-class woman wakes up next to her husband in her suburban home, and without conscious purpose, walks out the front door to begin a journey that ultimately leads to profound transfiguration.

She travels first by car and then train to Rosslare, from where she takes a ferry to Fishguard in Wales. Along the way, she finds herself in service stations, shopping centres, train stations, ferry terminals; recalling her youth, earlier fantasies of suicide and reminiscing about those people who have come in and out of her life.

Finally, 48 hours later, alone and isolated in a cottage in Wales, in a strange and eerie landscape, the woman reaches her nadir.

Breakdown is a novel about the rage and reckoning of a middle aged, educated woman who has lived her life in accordance with the expectations of society.

MATILDA BOOKSHOP REVIEW

One morning a 52-year-old, comfortably middle-class mother and schoolteacher wakes up and, for no apparent reason, abandons her family, home and job. From an acclaimed Irish short story writer comes this stunning debut novel, a meditation on motherhood, self-abandonment, the middle classes and climate grief. Written as a series of vignettes, Sweeney is a master of punchy sentences and precise, evocative language. For fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and Ali Smith. ROSE