SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE'What a phenomenal ear she has, and how remorselessly funny she is - My Phantoms is unmissably good' Kevin Barry, author of Night Boat to TangierHelen Grant has always been a mystery to her daughter. A twice-divorced mother-of-two she has sought intimacy in all the wrong places. Her daughter Bridget sees her once a year and considers the problem contained.

But as she looks back over their fractious relationship, she is forced to confront cruelties inflicted on both sides. My Phantoms is an insightful and painfully funny account of a family strained to breaking point, and a reckoning with the damage we do over the course of a life. My Phantoms was a Book of the Year in the Observer, the Daily Telegraph, the Irish Times, the Guardian, the White Review, the Evening Standard, the Big Issue, the TLS, the Week and the New Statesman.