Constellations

An extraordinarily intimate memoir in a series of bodily encounters that have made Sinéad Gleeson the woman and the writer she is today.

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'I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal. A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles.'

How do you tell the story of life that is no one thing? How do you tell the story of a life in a body, as it goes through sickness, health, motherhood? And how do you tell that story when you are not just a woman but a woman in Ireland? In this powerful and daring memoir in essays Sinéad Gleeson does that very thing. In doing so she delves into a range of subjects: art, illness, ghosts, grief and our very ways of seeing. In writing that is in tradition of some of our finest writers such as Olivia Laing, Maggie O'Farrell, Robert Macfarlane, Rebecca Solnit and Maggie Nelson, and yet still in her own spirited, warm voice, Sinéad takes on journey that is both personal and yet universal in its resonance.