Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way

Elaine Feeney author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:29th May '25

Should be back in stock very soon

Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way cover

'A superb, multi-generational story told in stunning, poetic prose. Elaine Feeney is one of Irish literature's most gifted and persuasive storytellers.' SINÉAD GLEESON

Claire O’Connor’s life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved from cosmopolitan London back home to the rugged West of Ireland to care for her dying father. But snatches of her old life are sure to follow her, when Tom unexpectedly moves nearby for work. As Claire is thrown back into a love she thought she’d left behind, she questions if Tom has come for her or for himself.

Living in her childhood home brings its own challenges. While Claire tries to maintain a normal life – obsessing over the internet, going to work and minding her own business – Tom’s return stirs up haunting memories trapped within the walls of the old family house.

Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is a story of love and resilience, rich with history and drama, and the legacies of violence and redemption. As the secrets of the past are revealed, Claire must confront whether she can escape her history to make her own future – and whether finding herself means facing herself too.

Feeney’s astute lyricism makes for a marvellously engaging story * Mail on Sunday *
One of Irish literature's most gifted and persuasive storytellers. -- Sinéad Gleeson
An uncanny understanding of the workings of the human heart. I loved this book. -- Louise Kennedy
This book touched my soul ...A perfect depiction of the complicated relationships we have with ourselves and our histories. -- Katriona O'Sullivan
Lulls the reader with its lyrical beauty, then slowly devastates with its raw passion and pain ...Shocking, intelligent and full of humanity, this is a story for our times. -- Mary Costello
A very strong novel and I was gripped by it throughout -- Alex Clark * RTE Radio *
Hugely powerful ...likely one of the most original you'll read this year -- Daily Mail
Expertly balances light and darkness, in a story that grips and engages... Sizzling, electric ... charged with humour and anger, reinvigorating and unexpected ...I loved it so -- Jenny Mustard
Superb... Feeney examines everything from intergenerational trauma and violence to tradwives, with insight, wit and compassion * Irish Times, Summer Reads *
The pull of home feels as irresistible as it is destabilising, forcing a confrontation with unspeakable truths... With a poet's eye, Feeney reflects on inherited trauma as well as today's 'trad wide' phenomenon -- Observer
An ambitious, thoughtful, nicely layered book * Irish Times *
This is a clear-eyed and deep-hearted calibration of accumulating trauma, which Feeney skillfully conveys the scope and heft of while considering what it might take to halt it in its devastating tracks. She has the novelist's instinct of wanting to get to the bottom of painful situations, yet she is also a first-class poet who knows that painful situations are often fathomless and ineffable. What we get then is a driven, tenacious, and probing narrative, made up of deeply expressive sentences that bristle and ache. Curious, sensitive, and unfeignedly visceral, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Waypacks an intellectual and emotional punch as it asks that most difficult of questions – What now? -- Claire-Louise Bennett
One of the finest writers of her generation ... Feeney will break your heart with her characters but she will also lovingly put it back together again. -- Edel Coffey
Feeney's warmth, compassion and bravery on the page... Her writing is so natural...that it seems at times miraculous. -- Lisa McInerney
Astonishing ... A book about how women hold power and space wand how the truths passed down by women from generation to generation create a shadow history that stands as a corrective to received narratives. -- Jessica Traynor
A strong story that packs an emotional punch ... In presenting both a political and personal history, Feeney delivers a moving meditation on enforced female roles in Irish society both past and present, the heavy pall of grief and the unceasing encroachment of the past into the present * Irish Independent *
An emotionally layered novel about memory, grief and resilience -- Image Magazine
I absolutely loved this novel - a story of lost love and longing that tears open to reveal a whole history of violence, told with the effortless intelligence and extraordinary compassion. -- Rosie Price, author of THE ORANGE ROOM
A beautiful digressive trip through modern life, and a far-wider-reaching, wildly ambitious vision of what it means to be Irish and a person right now. -- Roisin Kiberd
A startling and original novel loaded with insight on the long reach of traumas both personal and political. -- Sarah Gilmartin
Conveyed with lyricism and longing. * Observer, *Books to Look Out For 2025* *
Beautifully written ... Devastating, true and timely -- Zöe Venditozzi
A powerful, poignant book * Economist, *The Best Books of the Year So far* *

ISBN: 9781787303478

Dimensions: 223mm x 143mm x 29mm

Weight: 428g

320 pages