SHORTLISTED FOR TWO IRISH BOOK AWARDS'Something they don't tell you about getting older is that
you fall. Oh you hear about it in passing of course She had a fall poor thing. Falling is
not something you ever think about as a younger woman. You think about falling in love . . .'At
20 Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall.
At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding she discovered that he hadn't even told her his
real name.Sixty-odd years later Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of
essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children
into the world their father's years of mental illness and tragic death at 40 being a
cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin coming into her own in her middle years - going to
college working and writing and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade even as
she accepts the realities of being 'old'.Candid about everything that matters - love sex
heartbreak money class religion mental health rearing children (and letting them go)
reading and writing ageing - Open-Hearted is a compelling story about living life in a spirit
of curiosity and delight and with a willingness to look for good in
others._________________________________'By some distance the most courageous most poignant
most life-affirming memoir I've read in the last twenty years and more' Paul Howard'Genuinely
inspirational. I LOVE ANN INGLE' Marian Keyes'What a beautiful openhearted at times
broken-hearted memoir ... honest funny searingly direct a wonderful voice ... remarkable'
Joe Duffy'Really beautiful. Searingly honest astonishingly frank and very very funny' Maia
Dunphy
