Follow the Moon: A Memoir - Softcover

This story portrays a life among the Boston Irish, the New York Irish and the Irish Irish. Sheila Sullivan is an American journalist who has worked for "The Irish Times" for seventeen years. Born in 1956 in Chelsea, the first city north of Boston, she worked as a reporter for the New York Daily News and as a writer-producer for CNN in its Manhattan bureau before moving to Dublin in 1986 and to Achill Island, County Mayo in 1998. "Follow the Moon: A Memoir" is a highly original work, an engaging and beautifully crafted account of an unusual life, written with humour and humanity. It is the story of three moves - from Boston to New York, from New York to Dublin, and from Dublin to Achill - each one difficult and life-enhancing. Part memoir and part social and literary history, "Follow the Moon" contains a close portrait of legendary New York newspaperman Jimmy Breslin, along with cameos of writers Tom MacIntyre, Jay McInerny and Dominick Dunne. There is a behind-the-scenes look at the live coverage of the retrial of Claus von Bulow, the second televised trial in US history, with Sheila as its producer in the field. The book features a challenging conversation with philosopher John Moriarty about modern Ireland and more generally about the modern condition. There is an account of Heinrich Boll's time in Achill, including excerpts from two letters containing the Nobel Prize-winning writer's first impressions of the island. At its heart is the story of how Sheila met New Zealand-born composer Brent Parker, who later became her husband.

Sheila Sullivan was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts of Irish-American parents who believed in education, public service and the values of the Democratic Party, and she was among the first women graduates of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She was awarded a Watson Fellowship for one year of independent study in Ireland, after which she attended the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She lives in Achill with her husband, Brent, and her son, Conor. She takes the train to work at The Irish Times in Dublin on Wednesdays and returns to her island home on Saturdays. This is her first book.