Kerry Sunderland speaks with author Anne Tiernan, who wrote The Last Days of Joy, the bestselling book club pick that explores the aftermath of a suicide attempt and the perils of family secrets.

The Last Days of Joy is a compelling story that examines the legacy of family secrets and intergenerational trauma that results when a mother doesn’t want to be a mother. It’s an engrossing family drama about three siblings, Conor, Frances and Sinead, who are all scarred in their own way by their mother’s ambivalence or neglect, even before she unsuccessfully attempts to take her own life and ends up hovering between life and death for a large part of the story.

The first novel to be published by Hachette's new NZ imprint, Moa Press, The Last Days of Joy has enjoyed a decent run on the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list this year and has attracted four stars and 30-odd reviews on Goodreads.

The story is told, in third person, by the three Tobin siblings along with their mother, Joy, who reflects on her troubled life (in first person) as she occupies a liminal space between life and death.

There’s a strong character arc for all three Tobin siblings, with redemption for each at the end, but it is perhaps Sinead who experiences the most significant transformation. While Tiernan is clear Joy's story is not her mother's story, and she is not Sinead, her own life experience informs both characters.

Like the author, Sinead moves between two locations on opposite sides of the globe: Navan in County Meath, a small town near Dublin, and where Tiernan grew up; and Tauranga, where the novel’s Irish family, like the author's, have settled.

Tiernan weaves a feminist thread throughout the story, which often provides comic relief. For example, when elder sister Frances' husband Harry had a vasectomy and is sent home with orders to recuperate afterwards by lying on the couch for the weekend to watch the cricket, she is secretly seething with the unfairness of it:

"Imagine if getting an abortion was as easy. If men got pregnant, it would be. ('Listen, Lauren said to her once, 'if men got pregnant we'd be able to get an abortion at a drive-through. Side of fries with that, darl?'"

Of course, Irish women were only granted reproductive choice in 2019, which makes me wonder, would Joy have been a happier mother – or even a mother at all – if she’d had the choices women have today?

And Tiernan also saddles Sinead with a rather large dilemma, as she struggles to writer her second book after her first was a bestseller - a predicament Tiernan now finds herself in (although there can be no lazy solutions in real life).

When promoting The Last Days of Joy across the ditch in Australia, Hachette posed the question, “If you had one last chance, what would you tell your mother?”

But perhaps a more appropriate question, given the premise of the book, would be, “If you had one last chance, what would you like your mother to tell you?”

Given that the best grist for the book club mill are those that feature unique and complex characters, unique voices, plots that dance, and explore the big issues in life. That The Last Days of Joy is a top book club pick comes as no surprise. It’s a book that will lead to the heartiest of discussions.