Confessions

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize

"Confessions is a remarkable debut. A complex and compulsive read that unravels the intricate twists and revelations among three generations of women with elegance and urgency." Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace

A dazzling puzzle box of a novel (Oprah Daily) following three generations of women as decades of secrets spill out of the attic of one familys mysterious old home in rural Irelanda propulsive, page-turning story about the power of choice.

New York City, late September 2001. The walls of the city are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Bradys father is there, the poster she made taped to columns and bridges. When a letter arrives from an aunt she didnt know existed in Ireland with the offer of a new life, the name jogs a memory: an old videocassette game Cora used to play as a child where two sisters must save the students of a mysterious boarding school.

County Donegal, 1974. An eclectic group of artists known as the Screamers arrives in Burtonport and moves into the old schoolhouse down the road from where Risn lives with her older sister Mire. Alternately kind and cruel, brilliant artist Mire is a mystery to Risn, as is Mires relationship with the boy next door, Michael. When the Screamers look to hire an artist in residence, Risn enlists Michaels help to get Mire the job, setting in motion a chain of events that will put an ocean between the sisters and threaten to tear them apart forever.

Burtonport, 2018. Lyca Brady lives in a sprawling old house with her mother, Cora, and great aunt, Ro. Abortion has just been legalized in Ireland, and Lyca is struggling to find herself outside her mothers activism. An unexpected message from a childhood friend sends Lyca searching her houses mysterious attic, with its strange collection of old medical equipment, piles of paperwork, and dusty boxes of ancient video games. There, she unearths secrets hidden for decadessecrets perhaps better left unknown.

Catherine Aireys haunting debut spins a mesmerizing story of family and fate, survival and revelation, examining the irresistible gravity of the pasthow it endures through generations, pervasively present even when buried or forgotten.