Showing results by author "Christine Dwyer Hickey" in All Categories

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away. Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together.

Hailed by the critics as a masterpiece, Tatty is a devastating yet hilarious depiction of a troubled Dublin family, told through the lively, charismatic voice of a little girl over a 10-year period. During this time we see the destruction brought about by alcoholism as one little girl tries to come to terms with her parents’ drinking. Chapter by chapter, the child’s voice matures and her perception becomes more honed; we are left with a stunning portrait of a disintegrating family and the child lost within it.

1950: late summer season on Cape Cod. Michael, a 10-year-old boy, is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living nearby - the artists Jo and Edward Hopper - and an unlikely friendship is forged. She, volatile, passionate and often irrational, suffers bouts of obsessive sexual jealousy. He, withdrawn and unwell, depressed by his inability to work, becomes besotted by Richie's frail and beautiful aunt Katherine who has not long to live - an infatuation he shares with young Michael.