The Black Pool
A Memoir of Forgetting
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Hodder & Stoughton
Publishing:22nd May '25
£18.99
This title is due to be published on 22nd May, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
'Extraordinary. MacGabhann manages to be simultaneously tender, raw, profound, hilarious and horrible, guiding us through a nightmare into beautiful, hard-won wisdom' Lisa McInerney, Women's Prize for Fiction-winning author of The Glorious Heresies
'Raw and powerful'Irish Times, Books to look out for in 2025
'A vibrant, darkly humorous writer'Irish Independent, Non-fiction highlights for 2025
'A gripping and personal story of addiction'Irish Examiner, 2025 Books to Read
'Unflinchingly honest, heart-wrenching and life-affirming' RTÉ, 10 books we're looking forward to reading in 2025
A raw and powerful memoir of addiction and recovery, across three continents and multiple drugs, from early childhood through adulthood.
Following an obsessive mind trying (and failing) to find relief, The Black Pool is a gripping thrill-ride through violent, chaotic underworlds. Tracing the roots of an illness through the failures of youth and adolescence and finally back to childhood, it's about all the wrong places where addicts look for transcendence - from work, to relationships, to writing, to anger.
It shows what happens when everything falls apart. It shows us rock bottom and the start of the journey to recovery from there. It's a memoir shot full of holes and shocking clarities. And towards the end, it achieves something like serenity - something like recov
I've never read anything like The Black Pool. There are spiritual echoes of William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson, and of Sylvia Plath's jocose auto-fictional revelations of her efforts to die and to live, but these sentences are all Tim MacGabhann's own, and each one is a joyful thrill. His language is flamboyant, huge, dexterous, as alive as ink on paper can be. This is a wildly brilliant account of a life lived in a struggle against terrible pain, a memoir of addiction and recovery for the ages, a stone cold classic of the form. I was floored by the power and beauty of this book -- Donal Ryan, author of THE QUEEN OF DIRT ISLAND
The Black Pool is extraordinary; MacGabhann manages to be simultaneously tender, raw, profound, hilarious and horrible, guiding us through a nightmare into beautiful, hard-won wisdom -- Lisa McInerney, author of THE RULES OF REVELATION
Every sentence is a still-burning roach, flicked with glee into the face of death. Only Tim MacGabhann can break your heart like this - and give you the language to stitch it back together. I urge you to succumb to the ice-cold, visceral glory of the black pool -- Ben Pester, author of AM I IN THE RIGHT PLACE?
Raw and powerful -- Books to look out for in 2025 * Irish Times *
MacGabhann traces the roots of addiction and illness through his youth and childhood, writing about where he tried to find solace and what happened when everything fell apart. A vibrant, darkly humorous writer -- Non-fiction highlights for 2025 * Irish Independent *
Unflinchingly honest, heart-wrenching and life-affirming -- 10 books we're looking forward to reading in 2025 * RTÉ *
A gripping and personal story of addiction. -- 2025 Books to Read * Irish Examiner *
ISBN: 9781399728232
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
256 pages