From one of Ireland's most provocative and admired writers comes a story of rage and reckoning, joy and transformation, and one woman's decision to leave everything behind.
'Thrillingly relatable' HARPER'S BAZAAR
'A striking debut from a highly original writer' IRISH TIMES
'A vivid portrait of a woman adrift' OBSERVER
One winter morning on an ordinary day in contemporary Dublin, an ordinary middle-class woman wakes up in her ordinary suburban home. Her husband is next to her in bed, her teenage children sleeping nearby.
Without thinking much about it, she walks out the front door and never comes back.
She travels first by car, then train, then ferry. Along the way, she finds herself in service stations and shopping centres, hotel bars and hairdressers - and in the beds of strange men.
Finally, forty-eight hours later, alone in a cottage in Wales, the woman faces up to what she has been ignoring inside herself, her family, modern society: signs of breakdown.
'This funny, thoughtful novel will resonate with lots of women' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
'Riveting from the start' IRISH INDEPENDENT
'A gripping character study' DAILY MAIL
Genre: Literary Fiction
'Thrillingly relatable' HARPER'S BAZAAR
'A striking debut from a highly original writer' IRISH TIMES
'A vivid portrait of a woman adrift' OBSERVER
One winter morning on an ordinary day in contemporary Dublin, an ordinary middle-class woman wakes up in her ordinary suburban home. Her husband is next to her in bed, her teenage children sleeping nearby.
Without thinking much about it, she walks out the front door and never comes back.
She travels first by car, then train, then ferry. Along the way, she finds herself in service stations and shopping centres, hotel bars and hairdressers - and in the beds of strange men.
Finally, forty-eight hours later, alone in a cottage in Wales, the woman faces up to what she has been ignoring inside herself, her family, modern society: signs of breakdown.
'This funny, thoughtful novel will resonate with lots of women' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
'Riveting from the start' IRISH INDEPENDENT
'A gripping character study' DAILY MAIL
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"I loved this. It skewers mid-life motherhood malaise. A Falling Down for suburban housewives. A gripping study of middle-aged womanhood and shelved dreams. Subversive, darkly funny, tragic and illuminating all at once." - Edel Coffey
"Cathy Sweeney is a 21st century Kafka, an Irish Ernaux. Breakdown is so vivid, so formally dazzling, and so startling. As with only the very, very best books, you will experience the world afresh having read this. It is a hugely important novel for the 21st century." - Danny Denton
"A truthful and compassionate account of contemporary of marriage and motherhood that is as poignant as it is unsettling. Long after reading, Breakdown lingers in the mind." - Margaret Meyer
"Cathy Sweeney is a 21st century Kafka, an Irish Ernaux. Breakdown is so vivid, so formally dazzling, and so startling. As with only the very, very best books, you will experience the world afresh having read this. It is a hugely important novel for the 21st century." - Danny Denton
"A truthful and compassionate account of contemporary of marriage and motherhood that is as poignant as it is unsettling. Long after reading, Breakdown lingers in the mind." - Margaret Meyer
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