Books: a brave memoir on descent into mental illness

Memoir, mystery, late love and impending death make up this week’s varied collection of books.

The Episode, Mary Ann Kenny, Penguin Sandycove, €22.99

After the sudden death of her husband, Mary Ann Kenny was plunged into a black hole of grief. So bad was it that she landed in a psychiatric hospital, where she was to spend three months, away from her children, her support systems and her home. An academic with a successful career, she was threatened with the reality of her adored children having to go into care. Tusla – who almost daily make the headlines because of their ground-breaking failures – appeared to treat her breakdown as a criminal matter rather than a health issue. And they brought the gardaí along to their meetings just to prove it. Eventually she was to realise that the only way out was through, and that she would never recover depending on a mental health system she describes as ‘sick’. It’s a brave, no-holds-barred memoir not just about one woman’s descent into mental illness, but about how Dickensian and weirdly punitive our psychiatric and social services actually are. A bracing, jaw-dropping true story.

Mrs Spy, MJ Robotham, Head of Zeus, €24.65

Intelligent, funny and very well-crafted, this is the story of Maggie Flynn, single mother of a Beatles-obsessed teenager and widow of Davy Flynn, an MI5 agent who was stabbed to death on a London street. Maggie has decided to join MI5 in memory of her much-loved husband, and in the hope that she can join the force of good in fighting the enemy. The year is 1965 and the Cold War is at its height. Spying on foreign nationals known to be a national security threat while worrying about the shepherd’s pie burning and the state of one’s bunions is not the stuff of le Carré or Ian Fleming, but that’s how this novel works. It’s been described as the ‘Thursday Murder Club for spies’ and that’s pretty accurate. But when a KGB agent informs Maggie that her husband was murdered by one of his own, things get serious. Addictive and amusing.

The Black Pool, Tim McGabhann, Sceptre, €15.99

McGabhann is an established writer with a body of work to his credit, but it’s this memoir that will probably last in the history books. Without fanfare, McGabhann describes his descent into alcoholism and drug addiction and his subsequent ascent into sobriety. He neither complains nor explains as he leads the reader into his personal hell, straddling three continents and involving some very unsavoury and dangerous people. He was in trouble with drink and drugs before he graduated from Trinity College and mistook his addiction to be ‘normal’. But there’s nothing normal about these lost years, what Clint Hodges called ‘all the ruined hours’ where everything – every thought and deed – is ruled by The Fear, that most powerful overlord of addiction. Memoirs such as this are almost 10-a-penny these days, but McGabhann’s sheer literary muscle, with his myriad literary allusions and dazzlingly insane accounts of extended benders, make this particular memoir a thing apart. It will undoubtedly stand the test of time.

When The Cranes Fly South, Lisa Ridzén, Doubleday, €18

Translated from the original Swedish by Alice Menzies, this debut novel was inspired by the author reading the notes of her grandfather’s care team as he was approaching the end of his life. The story traces elderly Bo’s memories as he sinks further into infirmity, needing increasing medical care; his long marriage to his beloved, much-missed Frederika, his protracted difficulties with his only son Hans, his deep affection for his loyal dog, Sixten, and his friendship with Ture, a gay man striving to survive in a forbidden time. The focus on the quiet shame of dying slowly is a sobering one, as Bo’s memory is sometimes unreliable and his carers, through their notes, give a more accurate picture of how things really are. Mostly it’s about the shift from being a capable husband, father, friend and citizen to being a failing, bed-bound bag of bones, a burden. Shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Debut Fiction Prize, it’s a meditation on the cruelty of old age and dying. Not without its moments of amusement, it’s one ordinary man’s life story, written with great tenderness and compassion.

Best Friends, Andrew Meehan, Muswell Press, €13.99

One of my personal fiction highlights this year, this is the story of June Wylie and Ray Draper, both septuagenarians living near Dun Laoghaire pier, both still working in menial jobs, despite their age, because they can’t survive on their pensions, and both bearing the scars of long lives not exactly immersed in happiness and fulfilment. Each one lives alone and although they mightn’t admit it, both are lonely. June’s been married three times. Ray has never been married but did spend time training as a monastic. It didn’t end well. With comedy and elegance and a confident playfulness with language, Meehan recounts their meeting, their reluctant friendship and accident-prone development into partnership, involving all of the elements of old age, ambulance trips and abandoned picnic baskets included. A hopeless romantic (Ray) and a flinty aul’ wan, suspicious and judgemental (June) should not gel this effectively but to Meehan’s credit, they do. Forget the romcoms, this is what real love looks like and it ain’t pretty but it’s bittersweet and winsome, without for a single beat descending into the twee. A great novel.

Footnotes

Belfast TradFest kicks off on Sunday July 27 and runs until August 5. If this is your thing, see belfasttraditionalmusic.com for full programme and details.

In the same vein, the Fleadh Cheoil 2025 us in Wexford town on August 3-10 and full details are on fleadhcheoil.ie.

The All Together Now festival is on the August bank holiday weekend in Waterford and promises music, art, food, wellness and much more, boasting 18 stages and including the Boomtown Rats, Primal Scream and the Buena Vista All Stars. See alltogethernow.ie for details.

Birr Vintage Week starts on August 1 and runs until the 9th and promises ‘a unique historical, cultural and community-focused celebration. Dive into visual arts, music, street theatre, pop-up performances, workshops and exhibitions’. See birrvintageweek.com for more information.