Sorrow and Bliss
WINNER, BRITISH BOOK INDUSTRY BOOK OF THE YEAR
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION
An instant Sunday Times bestseller and a book of the year for the Times and Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Spectator, Daily Express, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Irish Daily Mail, Metro, Critic, Sydney Morning Herald, Los Angeles Times, Red, Good Housekeeping and Stylist Magazine.
This novel is about a woman called Martha. She knows there is something wrong with her but she doesn't know what it is. Her husband Patrick thinks she is fine. He says everyone has something, the thing is just to keep going.
Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn't want to have children. He said he didn't mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it.
By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it doesn't really matter anymore. It is too late to get the only thing she has ever wanted. Or maybe it will turn out that you can stop loving someone and start again from nothing - if you can find something else to want.
‘Sorrow and Bliss is a brilliantly faceted and extremely funny book about depression that engulfed me in the way I'm always hoping to be to be engulfed by novels. While I was reading it, I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realized that I wanted to send it to everyone I know.’
ANN PATCHETT, author of The Dutch House
‘Funny and as endearing as a good friend’
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, author of Demon Copperhead
‘I very much enjoyed Meg Mason's witty, affecting Sorrow and Bliss’
DAVID NICHOLLS, author of One Day
Completely brilliant. I think every girl and woman should read it’
GILLIAN ANDERSON
‘Meg Mason writes about the slow bleed of life-long depression with candour, humour and stark precision. Sorrow and Bliss is about what happens when your illness pushes everyone away - leaving you with only the sorest parts of yourself for company. It will, as the title suggests, shatter your heart, before mending it with infinite love. I've never read anything like it and will be pressing it into the hands of every reader I know.’
PANDORA SYKES, author of How Do We Know We're Doing It Right?
‘It made me laugh and cry. I loved it so much.’
EMILIA CLARKE
'Both fantastically dark and almost unbearably funny ... its beautifully understated, airy style conceals the fiercest intelligence. I loved it so much that I stalked the author on social media - a first. Just read it. It's unforgettable.' INDIA KNIGHT, The Times
‘Sorrow and Bliss is as wonderful as everyone says it is. Blunt, tender, hilarious, and so very good on the trickiness of families, it is that rare perfect balance of fun (commercial) and difficult (literary), and exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry.’ EVA WISEMAN, The Observer Magazine
‘As soon as I finished Mason's tragically funny debut novel, I gave it to a friend, bookmark and all. I have a feeling my much-underlined paperback has changed hands a dozen times by now; Sorrow and Bliss is too good to hang on to. Mason navigates [Martha's challenges] with dark charm.’ New York Times
Meg Mason has achieved something remarkable – Sorrow and Bliss is a raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion bashing book about love, family and life's curveballs that leaves you, satisfyingly, with what feels like wisdom forged in fire. The Times
‘A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book’ The Times
‘A Fleabag-esque novel being raved about by Gillian Anderson and Ann Patchett... Expect this one to light up the WhatsApp chats’ Sunday Times’ Style
‘It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud… Extraordinary’ Guardian
‘Gloriously tender and absorbing ... It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Mason pulls off something extraordinary in this huge-hearted novel, alchemising an unbearable anguish into something tender and hilarious and redemptive and wise, without ever undermining its gravity or diminishing its pain.’ Guardian
‘An incredibly funny and devastating debut ... enlivened, often, by a madcap energy. Yet it still manages to be sensitive and heartfelt, and to offer a nuanced portrayal of what it means to try to make amends and change.’ Guardian
‘Exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry’ Observer
‘Inspired storytelling... a devastating and sharply funny love story... it is Martha's voice itself - her woeful deadpan narration always teetering between the comic, the tragic and the downright unlikable - that makes this novel sing.’ Observer
‘Probably the best book you’ll read this year’ Mail on Sunday
‘Martha Friel, the narrator of this improbably charming novel about mental illness, will have you chortling and reading lines aloud.’ People Magazine
‘One of those “read it in one sitting and tell all your friends” kind of books’ Evening Standard
‘Brilliant, bleak and hysterically funny. Tackling mental illness, families, sisterly love and failing marriages... it's universally being proclaimed. The book of the summer.’ Evening Standard
‘You know that book that only comes along every so often, that seems to unite everyone who has read it in a sort of delirious fervour?Sorrow and Bliss is that book. It's utterly compelling and darkly funny: the book you have to read this summer.’ Evening Standard
‘Martha tells the story of the end of her marriage, her fiercely close relationship with her sister and her terrifying experiences of mental chaos in this brilliant, painful and unexpectedly comic novel. Narrated with insight and sensitivity by actor Emilia Fox, it looks set to become one of the hits of the year.’ The Financial Times
‘Deeply moving but also darkly funny, Mason has created the sort of story that you savour the last pages of and long for once it's over.’ Esquire
‘Summer's must-read novel... We can't recommend Sorrow and Bliss highly enough.’ Stylist
‘Meg Mason has the ability to keep the reader alongside and sharing in the hope every step of the way.’ Woman & Home
‘Rarely have the excoriating effects of mental illness been articulated quite so beautifully - as heartbreaking as it's funny, Sorrow and Bliss is one for the keeper shelves.’ Red Magazine
‘A viciously funny novel about mental illness that combines acute social satire with warmth and insight.’ Metro
‘Meg Mason's debut novel is tender and dark as a bruise, coloured with complicated emotions but also wryly funny. And, as it takes a candid look at the way mental illness can derail a person, it also brims with hope as Martha looks to the future, determined to pick up the pieces of her broken life.’ Sunday Express S Magazine
‘One of the darkest, sharpest novels you will find this year.’ Sunday Business Post
‘Martha Friel is one of those fictional characters that you can't get out of your head. The moment we'd finished this dazzling, spiky, darkly funny book, we wanted to read it all over again.’ Independent
‘Compulsively readable, Sorrow and Bliss is one of the funniest books I've read ... It is tempting to compare Martha to other tragicomic greats, Fleabag in particular. But Martha is such a brilliant, singular creation ... that it is more interesting to imagine not the characters that have inspired her but the ones she will inspire.’ Independent
‘Sorrow and Bliss is a book you'll want to devour in one sitting ... an adult coming-of-age novel told with force, breathlessness and a confessional style that makes you feel as if you're sharing intimacies with an old friend ... Mason's writing has been compared to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag for good reason ... fresh and revelatory ... sharp, racy and entertaining throughout.’ The Saturday Paper
‘Blisteringly good... a novel that manages to be psychologically complex, yet still an utter joy to read. Sorrow and Bliss bristles with great one-liners and set-pieces that are sometimes alarming, sometimes comic, but more often both.’ Reader’s Digest
‘A heartbreaking debut ... simultaneously funny and sad-and aching. Witty and stark, Martha's emotionally affecting story will delight fans of Sally Rooney.’ Publishers Weekly
‘Sophisticated and often blackly funny’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘Exploring the multifaceted hardships of mental illness and the frustrating inaccuracy of diagnoses, medications, and treatments, Sorrow and Bliss is darkly comic and deeply heartfelt. Much like the narrator of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Martha's voice is acerbic, witty, and raw. Fans of Marian Keyes should put this on their to-read lists.’ Booklist
‘This is a story of mental illness reflected through the prism of an uproarious, big-hearted family comedy. It is fiercely intelligent and absolutely sublime.’ Irish Independent
‘A sharp-eyed look at the impact of mental illness that's heartbreaking but also bitterly funny.’ Good Housekeeping
‘Sharp, stylish and revelatory, this novel is sure to be one of the big success stories of the year.’ Irish Times
‘Deliciously dark and fantastically funny’ Sunday Post
‘Sorrow and Bliss is a knockout. An unnamed mental health illness and a struggling marriage are both rendered by Mason with devastating honesty and laugh-out-loud wit.’ Irish Examiner
‘The summer's word-of-mouth hit was Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss, a wisecracking black comedy of mental anguish and eccentric family life focused on a woman who should have everything to live for.’
Guardian, Best Books of 2021
‘The summer’s most (justifiably) hyped novel, Sorrow and Bliss is a beautifully paced, darkly funny, heart-thuddingly moving portrait of family, marriage and chronic illness. Its pithy protagonist-narrator, Martha, is a memorable creation.’
Sunday Times, Best Fiction of the Year
‘The most recommended book of the summer, and with good reason. Meg Mason's novel about mental health, marriage and sisterhood is told in a singular voice of wry wit and blackly comic frankness. One of those “read it in one sitting and tell all your friends” kind of books.’
Evening Standard, Best Fiction of 2021
‘Simply unforgettable’
i Newspaper, Best Books of 2021
Without a doubt the book of the summer. By turns dryly funny and breathtakingly sad, it is a compulsive, exquisitely written look at mental illness and relationships.
I Newspaper, Number One Pick, Summer Reading Round Up
Probably the best book you'll read this year... Brilliant, bleak, hilarious. The book of the summer.
Mail on Sunday
‘Sharp yet humane, and jaw-droppingly funny, this is the kind of novel you will want to press into the hands of everyone you know. Mason has an extraordinary talent for dialogue and character, and her understanding of how much poignancy a reader can take is profound. A masterclass on family, damage and the bonds of love: as soon as I finished it, I started again.’
JESSIE BURTON, author of The Miniaturist
‘Consistently funny and sharp and dark: it's wonderful’
CHARLOTTE MENDELSON, author of Almost English
‘Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant’
CLARE CHAMBERS, author of Small Pleasures
‘Sorrow and Bliss is a thing of beauty. Astute observations on marriage, motherhood, family, and mental illness are threaded through a story that is by turns devastating and restorative. Every sentence rings true. I will be telling everyone I love to read this book.’
SARA COLLINS, author of The Confessions Of Frannie Langton
‘Brutal, tender, funny, this novel - a portrait of love in all of its many incarnations - came alive for me from the very first page. I saw myself here. I saw the people I love. I am changed by this book.’
MARY BETH KEANE, author of Ask Again, Yes
‘Sorrow and Bliss is a moving and poignant story about mental illness, family and love. It made me laugh and cry; a bittersweet read that will stay with you for a long time.’
LIBBY PAGE, author of The Lido
‘Sorrow and Bliss is hilarious, haunting, and utterly captivating. Meg Mason has created a heroine as prickly as Bernadette in Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Her humour is as arch and wise as the best work of Joan Didion and Rachel Cusk, yet completely original. What a thrilling new voice!’
AMANDA EYRE WARD, author of The Jetsetters
‘I devoured this book, with all its humour and pain and cock-eyed hope. It's a funny and excruciating portrayal of mental illness, family dysfunction and love, all told through the point of view of a narrator who is in turn frustrating and endearing, but always fascinating. I adored it from the first page.’
JULIE COHEN, author of Together
‘With its finger on the modern pulse, Sorrow and Bliss blisters with its prose which manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking in the same line. I kept having to stop to underline sentences. It reminded me of a cross between Fleabag and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but really, Meg Mason has crafted a protagonist who feels completely her own person. Fresh and alive.’
JODIE CHAPMAN, author of Another Life
‘This is a beautiful depiction of a marriage, with all of its ugliness and joy. But its also a brilliant depiction of a whole family, wounded by a legacy of mental illness, and tender, witty, and loving, in spite of it, So funny, and so very, very sad.’
ABIGAIL DEAN, author of Girl A
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