Grand

Critics Review

• A natural storyteller with a Sedaris-like eye for black humour. There are sharp splinters of comic relief . . . compelling and nuanced

  Irish Times

• Desperately funny, hysterically sad, so beautiful and so humane. All of life is in it. I utterly adored it

  Meg Mason

• Grand hooked me like a fish . . . a tale of recovery and growth [and] deep, deep love

  New York Times

• Exquisitely written . . . profoundly moving. And like all great memoirs it is hilarious in parts. If, like me, you love the personal essays of Sinéad Gleeson and Emilie Pine, you’ll adore this

  Sunday Independent

• A really vivacious account of frayed family relationships across decades and around the world

  Financial Times

• Remarkably funny, honest and often sad . . . there’s a whole pile of un-maudlin heart and a whole lot of love here

  Sunday Independent

• A searingly honest memoir, as close to the bone as it is to the heart

  Maia Dunphy

• Deeply moving and surprisingly funny

  Irish Examiner

• I loved it! The writing is stunning. Noelle McCarthy has an incredible knack for sharing the darkest of memories with a lightness of touch. You won’t want to put this book down, but once you do, every gorgeous word will haunt you. Beautiful and compelling

  Tara Flynn

• Savagely brilliant

  Business Post

• A fierce and sometimes hilarious reflection on the maddening endurance of love between mother and daughter. McCarthy’s prose sparkles in the darkness of addiction, shame, and inherited trauma. I devoured this book

  Aingeala Flannery

• Grand is a love story and occasionally a hate story too. A vital, unexpected love letter to family, flaws, and the fact that none of us is perfect. McCarthy writes to remind us that sometimes you have to pull at the threads, perhaps unravel completely, to find your way back to a life a little less undone

  Cristín Leach

• An eloquent exploration of generational trauma told with immense wit and candour. Compellingly readable

  Hilary Fannin

• A rich, unsettling read – a bit like jumping on a moving train as it speeds through shifting landscapes. Enthralling, unnerving and above all, honest

  Lia Mills

• I really loved this book . . . beautifully endearing and candid

  June Caldwell

• Humane and wryly funny . . . so readable, relatable and ultimately uplifting

  Elizabeth Boyle

• Already acclaimed in New Zealand, it doesn’t hold back any punches in describing a difficult relationship with her alcoholic mother (and is insightful about the restraints imposed on an intelligent woman of her mother’s generation living in conservative, Catholic Ireland.)

  Irish Examiner

• Terrific energy . . . sparkling and evocative

  Irish Examiner