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Long Going

"A moving, honest, authentic memoir of alcoholism, grief and surviving life’s worst storms."

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LoveReading Says

LoveReading Says

Beautifully written, Sophie Calon's Long Going shares a harrowing account of her dad’s downward spiral into alcoholism in a remarkable memoir that’s full of love, as well as grief and pain. It’s also deeply rooted in Wales, land of the author and her father: “People often speak of hiraeth.

Untranslatable, they say. Is it? Split it in two, hir|aeth, and you get long|gone. And that’s the crux of it, if you ask me. A longing for someone, something, sometime, someplace long gone. A heave in the gut for the no longer reachable”.

In this case, the unreachable is the author’s deceased father, whom she adored as a child: “He raised me to live with joy, curiosity, confidence, while he tipped slowly into oblivion. Obliterating all that possible living.” A man who went from being a successful lawyer to dying at the age of 55, lost to alcohol addiction after a period of homelessness and spending time in prison. 

Underpinned by a desire to share the author’s insights into addiction, grief and breaking addiction, Long Going is raw, tender and tremendously readable.

Joanne Owen
Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Long Going

At 50, Sophie Calon's father was a celebrated lawyer. At 55, he was found dead on a garage forecourt at Christmas. Meanwhile he had pinballed between homeless shelters, prison cells, and dry-out hostels.

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