First published 2014
Joe Brady watches Italy score against Ireland in the 1990 World Cup. The match ends 1-0, sending Ireland home from Italia '90. That night changes everything for Joe and his wife Janet on Parnell Street in Dublin. Years later, they speak in turn about what really happened between them. Joe reveals his side of their love story and its collapse. Janet tells hers. Their voices weave together, exposing the private moments that shaped their marriage and tore it apart. They also speak about Dublin itself, the city they have loved their whole lives. Through their alternating confessions, a picture emerges of how public violence and private cruelty can destroy what seemed unbreakable. The Bradys lived ordinary lives on Dublin's streets, but their story reveals the extraordinary pain hidden behind closed doors.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Dublin, Ireland, Italia '90, Parnell Street
Period: 1990
82 pages · Kindle Edition · Faber & Faber