Mother's Ruin

Author: Nicola Barry

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $40.00 NZD
  • : 9780755316731
  • : Headline Publishing Group
  • : Headline Review
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  • : July 2007
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 39.99
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Nicola Barry
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  • : Paperback
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  • : English
  • : 362.292092
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  • : 256
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Barcode 9780755316731
9780755316731

Description

Nicola Barry grew up in well-to-do Murrayfield, Edinburgh. Her father was a hospital consultant, her mother was medically trained, her brothers boarders at public school. But behind the closed doors of their imposing family home, her mother was drinking herself to death. A beautiful, quirky woman, this is the story of how Monica Barry became a prisoner to alcohol and a prisoner in her own home, her addiction slowlysucking the life out of her. And how - with her father at work, and her brothers away at school -Nicola spent a lot of her childhood as her mother's unofficial carer: hauling her from the bath when she was too drunk to function and running errands to buy her booze. Full of harrowing incidents, and warmed by a touching, bleak humour, this is the powerful story of how a mother drank herself to death and how alcohol destroyed a family. And of how Nicola battled with her own alcoholism but, determined to throw off her mother's legacy, came through - a survivor.

Author description

Nicola Barry is a feature writer and columnist, currently with the Sunday Express "andPress and Journal". She also worked at the Edinburgh Evening News" for five years andthe Scotsman". She is a recent graduate of the celebrated MPhil course in Creative Writing at Glasgow University and is currently studying for a PhD in the same field. She has won 29 press awards, mainly for social-issue writing and for her columns and lives with her partner and dogin Edinburgh.