Sorrow and bliss - Meg Mason

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

THE BOOK EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

'Just read it. It's unforgettable'
India Knight, The Sunday Times

'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Extraordinary'
Guardian

'Full of snappy one-liners but, at the same time, remarkably poignant'
Craig Brown

'Probably the best book you'll read this year'
Mail on Sunday

'Completely brilliant. I think every girl and woman should read it'
Gillian Anderson

'Exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry'
Observer

'The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year'
Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie

'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book'
The Times

'I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know'
Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House

'One of those "read it in one sitting and tell all your friends" kind of books'
Evening Standard

'Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant'
Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures


Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets.

So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave?

Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain.

Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.

THE BOOK OF THE YEAR
An instant Sunday Times bestseller and a book of the year for the Times and Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Spectator, Daily Express, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Irish Daily Mail, Metro, Critic, Sydney Morning Herald, Los Angeles Times, Stylist, Red and Good Housekeeping

MEG MASON began her journalism career at the Financial Times and The Times. Her work has since appeared in Vogue, Grazia, The Sunday Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sunday Telegraph. She has written humour for the New Yorker, been a monthly columnist for GQ, a regular contributor to Vogue and Marie Claire and a contributing editor at Elle. She lives in Sydney with her husband and two daughters.

This richly spiced novel is a pleasure from the first page to the last... Its beautifully understated, airy style conceals the fiercest intelligence. I loved it so much that I stalked the author on social media - a first. Just read it. It's unforgettable.
SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE - India Knight

The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year.
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY, YOU MAGAZINE - Elizabeth Day

It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Mason pulls off something extraordinary in this huge-hearted novel, alchemising an unbearable anguish into something tender and hilarious and redemptive and wise, without ever undermining its gravity or diminishing its pain.
GUARDIAN - Clare Clark

Inspired storytelling... a devastating and sharply funny love story... it is Martha's voice itself - her woeful deadpan narration always teetering between the comic, the tragic and the downright unlikable - that makes this novel sing.
OBSERVER - Julie Myerson

Probably the best book you'll read this year... Brilliant, bleak, hilarious: the book of the summer.
THE MAIL ON SUNDAY - Natasha Poliszczuk

Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason's first novel to be published in the UK, is as wonderful as everyone says it is. Blunt, tender, hilarious, and so very good on the trickiness of families, it is that rare perfect balance of fun (commercial) and difficult (literary), and exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry.
THE OBSERVER MAGAZINE - Eva Wiseman

Summer's must-read novel... We can't recommend Sorrow And Bliss highly enough.
STYLIST - Francesca Brown

A Fleabag-esque novel being raved about by Gillian Anderson and Ann Patchett... Expect this one to light up the WhatsApp chats.
SUNDAY TIMES STYLE - Louisa McGillicuddy

You know that book that only comes along every so often, that seems to unite everyone who has read it in a sort of delirious fervour? Sorrow and Bliss is that book... It's utterly compelling and darkly funny: the book you have to read this summer.
EVENING STANDARD - Jessie Thompson

Meg Mason has achieved something remarkable - Sorrow and Bliss is a raucously funny, beautifully written, emotionbashing book about love, family and life's curveballs that leaves you, satisfyingly, with what feels like wisdom forged in fire.
THE TIMES - Siobhan Murphy

This is a story of mental illness reflected through the prism of an uproarious, big-hearted family comedy. It is fiercely intelligent and absolutely sublime.
IRISH INDEPENDENT - Anne Cunningham

Rarely have the excoriating effects of mental illness been articulated quite so beautifully - as heartbreaking as it's funny, Sorrow And Bliss is one for the keeper shelves.
RED MAGAZINE - Sarra Manning

Deeply moving but also darkly funny, Mason has created the sort of story that you savour the last pages of and long for once it's over.
ESQUIRE - Olivia Ovenden

Completely brilliant, I loved it.
I think every girl and woman should read it.
Gillian Anderson

Sorrow and Bliss is a brilliantly faceted and extremely funny book about depression that engulfed me in the way I'm always hoping to be to be engulfed by novels. While I was reading it, I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realized that I wanted to send it to everyone I know.
Ann Patchett

Sharp yet humane, and jaw-droppingly funny, this is the kind of novel you will want to press into the hands of everyone you know. Mason has an extraordinary talent for dialogue and character, and her understanding of how much poignancy a reader can take is profound. A masterclass on family, damage and the bonds of love: as soon as I finished it, I started again.
Jessie Burton