AUTHOR Annette Sills claims her latest book was inspired by the struggles she saw her children face as they navigated their teenage years.
Wigan-born, to parents from Co. Mayo, Sills released Derailed last month – her third novel and one which is based on her own life experiences.
Sills writes stories that are set among the Irish diaspora in Manchester, the community which she is from.
As such many of her characters are second generation Irish, or Irish immigrants who have made their lives in the English city.
Her previous books have used that prism to tackle topics including Ireland’s clerical abuse scandal and its brutal mother and baby homes system.
While her latest novel takes a more general topic – that of teenage mental health – it retains strong Irish links.
“Derailed, moves between county Mayo, and the Irish communities in Manchester and Long Island, New York,” Sills told The Irish Post.
“It is the story of three families with three troubled teenagers whose lives are thrown off track during the turbulent years between Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic,” she adds.
“I wrote it when my own children were in their teens, and at its core is the theme of teenage mental health.”
Sills claims the pressures her children have faced in recent years are far worse than any anxiety she experienced in her youth.
“As a teenager in the seventies and eighties, I had my own anxieties, who doesn’t at that age?” she says.
“My two greatest fears were being vaporised by a nuclear bomb on the way to school, and later on, contracting Aids from a variety of ways, including sitting on a public toilet seat or by snogging a stranger,” she admits.
“But these fears, whilst terrifying at the time, were fleeting and transient and did not affect my everyday life,’ the author adds.
“I plodded on with school, my Saturday job and weekend nights out with my mates.
“Fast forward forty years to my own children’s teenage years and to a very different world.
Sills’ latest book tackles the teenage mental health epidemic“The years between 2016 and 2021 were a period of massive global upheaval – Brexit, international terrorism, (here in Manchester we had the Arena bombing) austerity measures and the Covid pandemic.
“My kids and their peers watched it all unfold 24/7 on smart phones which had also given them the ‘gift’ of social media.
“When my kids entered secondary school, it felt as if an epidemic had taken hold.
“Children I knew who had skipped happily into the primary school gates only a couple of years before started suffering with a variety of mental health issues: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, PTSD, self harm, suicidal thoughts, OCD, ADHD, sleep disorders.
“They fell like branches and leaves in a storm, and it was heartbreaking to witness.”
Sills has channeled those experiences into her new book, which is written from the point of view of three mothers.
“Each is facing their own battles as well as that of their troubled teens,’ she explains.
“Eileen, a native of County Mayo, is desperate to return to Ireland after the Brexit referendum, but her path is littered with obstacles.
“Single mum Michelle, raised in Manchester with Belfast parents, cannot shrug off her family’s republican past, and is looking for love, while Londoner Anne is haunted by her beloved father’s violent death,” she adds.
Describing the book, Sill said it is “a story about parental love, Irish identity, friendship, and an attempt to portray the fragilities of teenage mental health in a world gone mad”.
Published by Poolbeg Press, Derailed is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.
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