Get Your Free Audiobook

Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.
Academy Street cover art

Academy Street

Written by: Mary Costello
Narrated by: Melanie McHugh
Free with 30-day trial

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹569.00

Buy Now for ₹569.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.

Publisher's Summary

Academy Street is the heart-breaking and evocative story of one woman’s life spanning six decades. Tess’s childhood in 1940’s rural Ireland is defined by the sudden death of her mother. Later, in New York, she encounters the ferocious power and calamity of love, and the effects of catastrophic fate.

The novel resonates with the rhythms of memory and home as well as those of America’s greatest city. This is an intimate story about unexpected gifts and unbearable losses, and the perpetual ache for belonging. It is exquisitely written and profoundly moving.

©2014 Mary Costello (P)2014 Audible Studios

Critic Reviews

"I read Academy Street cover to cover in one night, unable to stop. It is a short novel about a long life, stretching from rural Ireland to post-9/11 New York, and brings to mind the elegance of Colm Toibin and the insight of Alice Munro. Its stealthy, quiet power will exert a hold over any reader" (Maggie O'Farrell)
"Mary Costello's writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand - call them themes; they are the kind of problems that make a writer" (Anne Enright, The Guardian)
"Exquisite . . . so intricately wrought, so unique and enthralling as to be utterly bewitching" (Lorraine Courtney, Sunday Independent)
"These stories want all of you, mind and body and soul, like a consummation" (Sonya Chung, The Millions)
“a markedly brave book, an unblinking attempt to recreate a life of intense ordinariness and make it special…well worth applauding” (The Sunday Times)
“Extraordinarily compelling” (The Guardian)
“Exceptional” (The Times)
“Mary Costello is a very gifted writer and this is a beautifully written novel” (Irish Independent)

What listeners say about Academy Street

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.