Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year

Shortlist 2025

Show Me Where It Hurts

By Claire Gleeson

How do you survive the unsurvivable?

Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children: it’s the ordinary family life she always thought she’d have. All of that changes in an instant – when Tom runs the family car off the road, seeking to end his own life, and take his wife and children with him. Rachel is left to pore over the wreckage to try and understand what happened – to find a way to go on living afterwards.

What emerges is a snapshot of what it’s like to live alongside someone who is suffering, how you keep yourself afloat when the person you love is drowning, and how you survive irreparable loss.

Impossible to turn away from, Show Me Where It Hurts is a compelling, heartbreaking and ultimately life-affirming story of recovery and unexpected hope.

About Claire Gleeson...

Claire Gleeson is from Dublin, where she lives with her young family and works as a GP. Her short stories have been short- and long-listed for numerous prizes. In 2021 she was awarded a Words Ireland literary mentorship while she worked on the first draft of Show Me Where It Hurts, which went on to be a runner-up at the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair 2023

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