In late 2018, Michael Harding was in a hotel room in Blanchardstown experiencing severe pains in his chest. He eventually phoned an ambulance and was admitted to hospital, suffering from an acute heart attack. Here, in Chest Pain, he looks at the months before the heart attack when he kept the signs of failing health from his beloved and instead retreated into solitude — and with his own inimitable style and humour takes us with him through the months after a stent had been inserted in his heart, where he travels the roads of Donegal in a camper van in a journey back to the beloved, and to himself.
Chest Pain is a thought-provoking, spell-binding memoir about togetherness and what it means to be alive.
Chest Pain is a thought-provoking, spell-binding memoir about togetherness and what it means to be alive.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
Searingly honest, funny, self-deprecating, Harding's narrative seems to rest on the pulse of Ireland
A compelling memoir. Absorbing and graced with a deceptive lightness of touch ... Harding writes like an angel
Hilarious, and tender, and mad, and harrowing, and wistful, and always beautifully written. A wonderful book
Wonderful ... Like many people who have achieved a great deal, [Harding] cannot recognise his triumphs. This book, like its predecessor, is one of them
A book that champions the kindness (or at least company of) strangers as essential for that elusive state known as happiness