Description
Julie McDermot has just been released from 'The Mental', the psychiatric institution where her husband committed her after the devastating loss of their two infant children. Returning to her narrow, lonely life along the canal, Julie is haunted by grief and the aching absence of what might have been.
As she struggles to piece herself back together, an unexpected encounter with a stranger along the canal offers a glimmer of connection and the fragile possibility of hope. Their encounter also brings long-submerged realities to the surface, to a place where they can no longer be ignored; exploring Ireland's dark history of institutional incarceration and offering a profound glimpse of hopein a stunning portrait of a woman's life.
Moving and deeply evocative, this novel is a powerful meditation on sorrow, isolation, and the surprising ways joy can return to even the most broken heart.
Author: John MacKenna
Publisher: Lilliput Press
Published: 08/04/2026
Pages: 156
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 8.47h x 5.32w x 0.37d
ISBN13: 9781843519720
ISBN10: 1843519720
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Romance | Historical | General
- Fiction | World Literature | Ireland | 20th Century
About the Author
John McKenna is the author of seventeen books--novels, short-stories, memoir, biography and poetry. He has also written a number of stage and radio plays and is a frequent contributor to RTE Radio 1. He is a winner of the Hennessy New Writing Award, the Irish Times Fiction Award and the Cecil Day Lewis Literary Award; his novel The Space Between Us was shortlisted for the Kerry Book of the Year Award. He was recently nominated for the position of Irish Fiction Laureate.