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A Novel
by Catherine Airey
For fans of The Goldfinch and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, an ambitious and absorbing debut that follows three generations of women from New York to rural Ireland and back again.
New York City, late September 2001. The walls of the city are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Brady's father is there, the poster she made taped to columns and bridges. When a letter arrives from an aunt she didn't know existed in Ireland with the offer of a new life, the name jogs a memory: an old videocassette game Cora used to play as a child where two sisters must save the students of a mysterious boarding school.
County Donegal, 1974. An eclectic group of artists known as the Screamers arrives in Burtonport and moves into the old schoolhouse down the road from where Róisín lives with her older sister Máire. Alternately kind and cruel, brilliant artist Máire is a mystery to Róisín, as is Máire's relationship with the boy next door, Michael. When the Screamers look to hire an artist in residence, Róisín enlists Michael's help to get Máire the job, setting in motion a chain of events that will put an ocean between the sisters and threaten to tear them apart forever.
Burtonport, 2018. Lyca Brady lives in a sprawling old house with her mother, Cora, and great aunt, Ro. Abortion has just been legalized in Ireland, and Lyca is struggling to find herself outside her mother's activism. An unexpected message from a childhood friend sends Lyca searching her house's mysterious attic, with its strange collection of old medical equipment, piles of paperwork, and dusty boxes of ancient video games. There, she unearths secrets hidden for decades—secrets perhaps better left unknown.
Catherine Airey's haunting debut spins a mesmerizing story of family and fate, survival and revelation, examining the irresistible gravity of the past—how it endures through generations, pervasively present even when buried or forgotten.
"[A] bold and intricate debut... Airey crafts a sharp psychological sketch of each woman as they contend with their parallel crises, adding nuance and depth without shying away from making a strong statement for reproductive rights. Readers will be eager to see what Airey does next." —Publishers Weekly
"[An] intoxicating debut ... Each narrative, conversationally yet eloquently phrased, has a bracing openness that transfixes one's attention. Women seeking outlets for their tumbling emotions—via writing, art, and more—weave through this polyphonic story, as do the secrets and interpersonal connections that invisibly scaffold their lives." — Booklist
"Confessions is a remarkable debut. A complex and compulsive read that unravels the intricate twists and revelations among three generations of women with elegance and urgency." —Miranda Cowley Heller, New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace
"I was mesmerized from the very first pages of Catherine Airey's startling debut, Confessions. The story of Maire and Roisin, two Irish sisters living an ocean apart, proceeds with an almost hypnotic power and grace – it has the certainty of fable and the true originality of a powerful new voice in fiction." —Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics
"A sweeping story that spans both generations and continents, Catherine Airey's Confessions is, at its heart, about the desire to know ourselves and those who came before us as well as an exploration of the mystery that lies at the heart of love. A bold and ambitious debut from a remarkable new writer." —Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year
This information about Confessions was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Catherine Airey grew up in England in a family of mixed Irish and English descent. She studied English at Cambridge and now lives in County Cork. Confessions is her first novel.
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