{"product_id":"9780993277313","title":"Scourged: A Memoir","description":"Beginning in the 60's, the tandem narrative unravels the memories of life in a small Irish town - narrated by the Scourge of the title - MDM - and her Mother Siobhán - in a series of flashbacks. \u003cp\u003eIt comprises sections of black comedy, nostalgia, memories and epiphanies - that document the personalities, history, and archive of an ordinary family, who through the bastard of disease that the Scourge calls \"death by a thousand cuts\" becomes cathartic, redemptive, and ultimately uplifting, as we become extraordinary in our ability to cope. \u003cbr\u003eIt also shines a light on an illness that is rarely discussed in this detail.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten over 4 years, \"Scourged\" takes the reader on a journey from early diagnosis, the stages as the patient declines, the family's implosion, the morphing of the Scourge from wide eyed child into Enfant Terrible - then through obese depressed recluse, morphing into the creator of Shellshock - One Woman shows .\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSiobhán has always been my inspiration.\u003cbr\u003eThe first thing I ever wrote about Siobhán was a short story called \"Mothers Day\" and following her hospital admission, a play called \"Brigids Women\" - named for the ward Siobhán spent 7 months in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter a decade of dementia, 6 years of which were spent in a small room in a Nursing Home, and after bravery that was described by medical personnel as \"heroic and humbling\" Siobhán was called home during a hurricane on the last day of winter, St Brigids Day.\u003cbr\u003eHer Months Mind Mass was held 7 weeks later, on Mother's Day.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe book has been called groundbreaking and remarkable by a readers panel.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI feel my Mother has helped me write it, and that I have given her back her voice, which was sadly silenced, and also given her back her place in the world, which she longed to see. \u003cbr\u003eI will use her own artwork - which she painted as a child- on the cover, with her signature.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shellshock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49868901613808,"sku":"9780993277313","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780993277313","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}