‘With extraordinary devotion, Mary Costello brings to life a woman who would otherwise have faded into oblivion amid the legions of the meek and the unobtrusive.’J.M. CoetzeeAcademy Street is the heart-breaking and evocative story of one woman’s life spanning six decades. Tess’s childhood in 1940’s rural Ireland is defined by the sudden death of her mother. Later, in New York, she encounters the ferocious power and calamity of love, and the effects of catastrophic fate. The novel resonates with the rhythms of memory and home as well as those of America’s greatest city.This is an intimate story about unexpected gifts and unbearable losses, and the perpetual ache for belonging. It is exquisitely written and profoundly moving.

An elderly schoolteacher recalls the single act of youthful passion that changed her life forever. A young gardener has an unsettling encounter with a suburban housewife. A teenage girl strikes up an unlikely friendship with a lonely bachelor.In these twelve haunting stories award-winning writer Mary Costello examines the passions and perils of everyday life with startling insight, casting a light into the darkest corners of the human heart.