The Irish Goodbye

A Novel

By: Heather Aimee O'Neill

Narrated by: Kristen Sieh

National Bestseller

A #ReadWithJenna book club pick following an Irish American family with three adult sisters returning home to Long Island to face tension-filled dinners, ghosts from their pasts, and family secrets in a gripping novel full of biting wit and profound heart.

It’s been years since the three Ryan sisters were all together at their beloved family home. Two decades ago, their lives were upended by a fatal accident on their brother Topher’s boat. Now the Ryan women are back and eager to reconnect, but each carries a heavy secret. The eldest, Cait, still holding guilt for the role no one knows she played in the boat accident, rekindles a flame with her high school crush. Middle sister Alice has been thrown a curveball that threatens the career she’s restarting and faces a difficult decision that may doom her marriage. And the youngest, Maggie, is finally taking the risk of bringing the woman she loves home to meet her devoutly Catholic mother.

When Cait invites a guest from their shared past to dinner, old tensions boil over and new truths surface, nearly overpowering the flickering light of their family bond. Far more than a family reunion will be ruined unless the sisters can find a way to forgive one another—and themselves.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company

Critic reviews

A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick

“A sparkling debut, The Irish Goodbye is a rich, compassionate novel about sisterhood, marriage, grief, and forgiveness.”
—Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street

“The family saga we all need—utterly un-put downable, beautifully drawn, thrilling and heartfelt at once and totally not to be missed. Heather Aimee O'Neill has arrived with gorgeous skills and a keen eye for what drives families apart, and brings them together, too.”
—Jessica Soffer, New York Times bestselling author of This Is a Love Story

"I picked up The Irish Goodbye one morning and finished it later that night, unable to do anything else until I got to the end. These characters captured my heart, and I got lost in this family weekend full of secrets, resentment, and emotional landmines. Heather Aimee O’Neill has written a beautiful debut about family, grief, love, and loss."
—Jennifer Close, bestselling author of Marrying the Ketchups

"Lovingly rendered and acutely felt, The Irish Goodbye takes the reader into the aching, complicated nooks and crannies of a single family trying to find their way back to one another, even as none is sure they have hold of themselves. A beautiful and moving debut."
—Lynn Steger Strong, author of The Float Test

“Emotionally gripping and achingly poignant, The Irish Goodbye is about the secrets we keep from our families and from ourselves. In the Ryans, Heather Aimee O’Neill has created a family that, despite its glimmering specificity, could very well be our own. Mesmerizing.”
—Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year

"The Irish Goodbye has it all: a lovable cast of complex characters; forbidden affairs; a stately, crumbling beach house; a doomed sailboat; long-suppressed family secrets; and one pressure-cooker of a holiday weekend. Above all, this finely-crafted novel explores what it means to be a family, and what we owe each other and ourselves."
—Amy Shearn, award-winning author of Animal Instinct and Unseen City

"Fans of writers from Maeve Binchy to Alice McDermott to J. Courtney Sullivan will relish this big-hearted novel."
—Kirkus

"O’Neill, a poet and writing coach, brings her skills to her compelling debut....This melancholy yet loving novel is perfect for fans of Jennifer E. Smith’s Fun for the Whole Family."
—Booklist

Pretty good

This book was pretty good… Not great. The characters were all pretty narcissistic, which got annoying.

Heartfelt and poignant

This book was emotional, passionate, fueled by love, desire, lies and pain. Family dynamics and reality are difficult and poignant.

Honesty is the best policy..especially in family relationships!

A tough subject that could have gone more towards a soap opera vein but didn’t, thankfully!

Meet the Ryan’s

Run don’t walk and get this book. The writing is spectacular. A true family drama of a family coming together for Thanksgiving with all their own drama and a shadow of grief that has touched them all.

Did not relate to the characters

The author's writing form and style are excellent. However, I did not like any of the sisters. I could not relate to their current problems. The two sisters who are mothers were not all that great at mothering. The children characters were well-written. They added to the story in a unique way. But I will not be reading this book again. At the end of the narrative, I did not feel hopeful or that the family was coming together. They were all still really broken. I finished the story and thought, "What was the point?"