" 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 For fans of The Goldfinch and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
and Tomorrow an ambitious and absorbing debut that follows three generations of women from
New York to rural Ireland and back again. New York City late September 2001. The walls of the
city are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Brady's father is there the poster she
made taped to columns and bridges. When a letter arrives from an aunt she didn't 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 Róisín lives with her
older sister Máire. Alternately kind and cruel brilliant artist Máire is a mystery to Róisín
as is Máire's relationship with the boy next door Michael. When the Screamers look to hire an
artist in residence Róisín enlists Michael's help to get Máire 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 mother's activism. An unexpected message from a childhood friend sends Lyca
searching her house's 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 decades--secrets perhaps better left unknown. Catherine Airey's haunting debut spins a
mesmerizing story of family and fate survival and revelation examining the irresistible
gravity of the past--how it endures through generations pervasively present even when buried
or forgotten.
