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Chest Pain

On sale

26th September 2019

Price: £14.99

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Selected: Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781473690653

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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.

Reviews

Irish Times on On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist
Searingly honest, funny, self-deprecating, Harding's narrative seems to rest on the pulse of Ireland
Sunday Times on Hanging with the Elephant
A compelling memoir. Absorbing and graced with a deceptive lightness of touch ... Harding writes like an angel
Kevin Barry on Staring at Lakes
Hilarious, and tender, and mad, and harrowing, and wistful, and always beautifully written. A wonderful book
John Boyne on Hanging with the Elephant
Wonderful ... Like many people who have achieved a great deal, [Harding] cannot recognise his triumphs. This book, like its predecessor, is one of them
RTE Guide on Talking to Strangers
A book that champions the kindness (or at least company of) strangers as essential for that elusive state known as happiness