Poor

Someone once said to me: “you’re only as happy as your saddest child.” It nearly floored me. For me, this is so true. Like most parents, I worry about my daughter all the time: is she happy? Does she feel loved? Does she have enough? The list of preoccupations goes on. But what if I didn’t think that way? What if I couldn’t look after her because I was diseased with an addiction to drugs and alcohol and was, for the most part, incapacitated in a way that is not conducive to the raising of children?

 

Katriona O’Sullivan grew up with such parents and she was pretty much left to fend for herself. 

 

Katriona’s book, Poor, exposes the nuances of growing up with addicted parents. Her story tells of an otherwise close family like any other, robbed of a deserved upbringing by her mother and father’s addiction. Through Katriona’s memoir, you sense parental love battling to make itself felt. But in her younger years, Katriona’s neglected state would draw the attention of some kind souls who would afford her the dignity she deserved, showing her love and compassion and profoundly affecting her worldview. 

 

And this is just the beginning of this memoir that leads right to where Katriona graduates from Trinity College with a PhD and is today a lecturer at Maynooth University.

 

It’s honest; it’s well-read in Katriona’s hybrid Coventry/Dublin accent and I found it avoided any sense of self-pity or melodrama. It’s just a remarkable tale of one woman’s life of incredible adversity and how she overcame it.

 

Poor was written and read by Katriona O’Sullivan. It was published by Penguin Random House and commissioned by Meredith Benson in London. The audiobook was recorded in April 2023 and the book was launched on the 25th of May.