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Elaine Feeney Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way

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Code 9781529967463
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Description

Binding: Paperback

Date Published: 14 May 2026

THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF AUTHOR OF THE YEAR AT THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS


The deeply moving story of the O'Connor family, its troubled past in the West of Ireland, and a love story of second chances from the Booker-longlisted author of How to Build a Boat

'A haunting powerful page turner that will have you in its thrall' GABRIEL BYRNE
'One of Ireland's shining literary stars...an energetic and vivid voice' THE TIMES
'Full of humanity, a story for our times' MARY COSTELLO
'I loved this book' LOUISE KENNEDY
'Superb' IRISH TIMES

Claire O'Connor's life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved back home to the rugged West of Ireland to care for her dying father. She spends her days getting lost online, going to work and minding her own business. But Claire is thrown back into a love she thought she'd left behind when Tom unexpectedly moves nearby, stirring up haunting memories trapped within the walls of the old family house. As the secrets of the past are revealed, Claire must confront whether she can escape her history to make a future for herself.

'This book touched my soul' KATRIONA O'SULLIVAN

'I believe this is the best book of the year' Oliver Callan, RTE RADIO

'Hugely powerful' DAILY MAIL

'One of Irish literature's most gifted and persuasive storytellers' SINEAD GLEESON

'Sizzling, electric... charged with humour and anger... I loved it' JENNY MUSTARD

'Clear-eyed and deep-hearted... packs an intellectual and emotional punch' CLAIRE-LOUISE BENNETT

About the Author

Elaine Feeney is an acclaimed novelist and poet from the West of Ireland. Her debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O'Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. How to Build a Boat was also shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a New Yorker Best Book of the Year. With her third novel, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way, Feeney was shortlisted again for Irish Novel of the Year and won the Library Association of Ireland Author of the Year. Feeney has published the poetry collections Where's Katie?, The Radio Was Gospel, Rise and All the Good Things You Deserve, and lectures at the University of Galway.

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More Like This

One of Ireland's shining literary stars...an energetic and vivid voice' * The Times *
Feeney's astute lyricism makes for a marvellously engaging story * Mail on Sunday *
A haunting powerful page turner of a novel that will have you in its thrall from first to last page -- Gabriel Byrne
One of Irish literature's most gifted and persuasive storytellers. -- Sinead 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 wife' phenomenon -- Observer
An ambitious, thoughtful, nicely layered book * Irish Times *
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
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 Way packs an intellectual and emotional punch as it asks that most difficult of questions - What now? -- Claire-Louise Bennett
A true gift to Irish literature... Feeney's work has the power to articulate, with such great empathy, the truths of our country that were drowned in cultural silence -- Helen Cullen * Irish Times Books of the Year *
Elaine Feeney is a force to be reckoned with. Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way was one of the most talked-about books of 2025, and it deserves every bit of praise and then some... Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way is a masterpiece, and you're seriously missing out if you've not read it yet * Her.ie Books of the Year *
Feeney has created a brilliant metaphor in the O'Connor family home... It's a hugely satisfying, sophisticated structure * Guardian *
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 *
This book sucked me in co

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