Published in 2022
256 pages
Sophie White is a novelist, essayist and podcaster from Dublin. She is the author of seven books and has previously held the position of writer-in-residence in both Dublin City University and the Museum of Literature Ireland. Her fifth book, the bestselling memoir Corpsing (2021), was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award and the Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction. Where I End is her sixth book and won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. She co-hosts the chart-topping comedy podcast, The Creep Dive and writes the Substack, Death Is Coming.
What is this book about?
Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, a modern gothic horror where a young woman falls into a dark obsession after a new artist and her baby arrive on her small Irish island.
At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her. Sometimes in the morning we find her in places. We never see her move. We just come upon her.
Aoileann is cursed. She has no friends, never gone to school. She has never left this windswept craggy isle off the coast of Ireland.
Her mother is cursed: a silent wreck Aoileann calls the “bed-thing.” Alongside her grandmother, Aoileann’s days are an endless monotony of feeding, changing, and caring for the bed-thing.
Their island seems cursed, whispering secrets only Aoileann hears. Then Rachel, a vivacious artist from the mainland, arrives with her colicky newborn. Rachel arouses yearnings Aoileann cannot fully comprehend. Soon, the unfolding of her mother’s secret tragedy and Aoileann’s pursuit of her own dark desires are both destined to unleash a maelstrom upon all three of their lives.
Described by New York Times–bestselling author John Connolly as “perhaps the finest Irish horror novel of the 21st century,” Where I End is a modern Irish gothic that will pull readers into its undertow of family resentments and relentless obsession.
