Product details
- ISBN 9781529379228
- Weight: 41g
- Dimensions: 138 x 222mm
- Publication Date: 03 Oct 2024
- Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland
- Publication City/Country: IE
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A stunning new memoir from the number one bestselling, award-winning author of All the Things Left Unsaid and Staring at Lakes.
To mark his 70th birthday, Michael Harding took a holiday in Spain, walking a short part of the Camino de Santiago in the early summer of 2024. But as he set off on this pilgrimage, Harding wasn't alone. Accompanying him was his father, who passed away when Michael was just twenty-two. A man who was distant and aloof, but who had a profound effect on the writer's life.
In, I Loved Him from the Day He Died, Harding travels back in time to the Ireland of his youth, to the Holy Wells and pubs he visited in a search for a sense of connection and he begins to unpack the long ago trauma of losing a father he never really knew.
As he walks in the heat of the Spanish sun, with searing honesty and beautifully wrought prose, he examines how the father shapes the son -- and how the boy becomes a man in the search for that which makes us whole: belonging.
And, as Harding arrives back home after his trip, he discovers, finally, how to say goodbye.
Told with simple vulnerability and profound insight, I Loved Him from the Day he Died is a stunning and heartfelt examination of love, forgiveness and letting go.
Praise for Michael Harding's writing:
'A beautiful book of great tenderness and wisdom' Joseph O'Connor
'I read this book in one sitting ... it held me and wouldn't let go' Mary McEvoy
'Wonderful' John Boyne
'Hilarious, and tender, and mad, and harrowing, and wistful, and always beautifully written' Kevin Barry
'Extraordinary' Deirdre Purcell
Michael Harding is an author and playwright. A recipient of the Stewart Parker Award for theatre, a Hennessy Award for Short Stories and a Bank of Ireland/RTÉ award for Excellence in the Arts in 1990, he has written numerous plays for the Abbey Theatre and was writer in association with the National Theatre in 1993.
His novels include Bird in the Snow, The Trouble with Sarah Gullion and Priest. He is also the author of several bestselling memoirs including Staring at Lakes (winner of the Bord Gáis Energy Book of the Year award), Hanging with the Elephant, Talking to Strangers, On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist, Chest Pain and What is Beautiful in the Sky.
He is a member of Aosdána, a columnist for over fifteen years with The Irish Times and his podcasts are available on the Patreon platform.