Mary Rose Callaghan is an Irish novelist and biographer.

If Frank McCourt had been a woman, this would have been his story. No, it could only be Mary Rose Callaghan's, an eldest daughter, simultaneously trying to save her father, her five siblings, and her beloved mother from mental illness, alcoholism, asthma, extreme poverty, terrifying debt. "Our family had experienced a tragedy as bad as any Shakespeare," she says when her father dies, and sure enough, the gradual dissolution of her once-wealthy and prestigious family is worthy or the bard. Mary Rose herself, as she stumbles through her school years, her head always n a book, is tragic, brave, and funny. This is an amazing tale that swoops up the whole of the culture, and of America's, with grace and intelligence.