Nuala O'Faolain's first memoir Are You Somebody? became a literary sensation and an international bestseller when it was first published by New Island Books in 1996. It launched a new life for its author, at a time when she had long since let go of expectations that anything new could dislodge patterns of regret and solitude. A pioneering work of literary memoir, Almost There opens at that moment when O'Faolain's life began to change. It tells the story of a life in subtle, radical, and unforeseen renewal. It is a tale of good fortune chasing out bad – of an accidental harvest of happiness. But it is also a provocative examination of one woman's experience of the 'crucible of middle age' – a time of life that faces in two directions, that forges the shape of the years to come, and also clarifies and solidifies one's relationships to friends and lovers, family and self. Nuala O'Faolain's final memoir, Almost There chronicles the pursuit of artistic and personal integrity, and what it is to be a woman in contemporary society, with the signature style and raw candidness of her personal writing.
"Disarmingly honest, painfully funny and sharply observant … Almost There is another letter from a wise friend."
USA Today
"O'Faolain is still that ferociously truth-telling woman … She has a tangy story-telling style, nurtured in a mordant Irish sense of irony and an Oxford-trained sleekness of thought. The most vivid of her recollections have the rush of elegant daydreaming … It is such unrepentant honesty - and her almost childlike determination to do better - that gives her book its strength."
