Mother's Ruin

Mother's Ruin

by NicolaBarry (Author)

Synopsis

Nicola Barry grew up in well-to-do Murrayfield, Edinburgh. Her father was a hopsital 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 slowly sucking 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.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Publisher: Headline Review
Published: 12 Jul 2007

ISBN 10: 0755316738
ISBN 13: 9780755316731

Author Bio
Nicola Barry is a feature writer and columnist, currently with the Sunday Express and Press and Journal. She also worked at the Edinburgh Evening News for five years and the 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 dog in Edinburgh.