Chest Pain: A man, a stent and a camper van

Description

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.

Michael Harding is an author and playwright. His creative chronicle of ordinary life in the Irish midlands is published as a weekly column in The Irish Times. He has written numerous plays for the Abbey Theatre, including Una Pooka, Misogynist and Sour Grapes, and has published three novels, Priest, The Trouble with Sarah Gullion and Bird in the Snow as well as several bestselling memoirs, including Staring at Lakes, which won three BGE Irish Book awards, Hanging with the Elephant, Talking to Strangers and On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist.

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