Grand: Becoming my mother's daughter - Noelle McCarthy 2023

Grand: Becoming my Mother’s Daughter by Noelle McCarthy

Published by: Penguin, Penguin Random House

Winner of: E.H. MCCORMICK PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTION and BEST FIRST BOOK AWARD.

The E H McCormick Prize for General Non-Fiction is named for the late Eric McCormick, the eminent historian and biographer of Frances Hodgkins.

The Best First Book Award is sponsored by Mātātuhi Foundation

This exquisite debut masterfully weaves together the threads of Noelle McCarthy’s life, and her relationship with her mother, in a memoir that connects with truths that unite us all. Poignant and poetic language renders scenes with honesty and colour. Intimate, but highly accessible, the fragility and turbulence of the mother-daughter relationship is at times brutally detailed. Despite this, Grand is an uplifting memoir, delicate and self-aware, and a credit to McCarthy’s generosity and literary deftness.