ABOUT BOOK

The story of a mother diagnosed with severe paranoid schizophrenia, the daughter she is denied custody of and their mutual decision to go on the run.'There's something about mother-daughter relationships I find particularly interesting,' Jones says. 'A female has given birth to another female who one day will probably give birth herself. There's a chance for incredible empathy. Yet such relationships are often fraught, squandered. I wanted to explore that.'Yet IRISH GHOST, ENGLISH ACCENT is not only about motherhood.'I was also very interested in this label schizophrenia - how unsatisfactory a label it is - and certain ideas I have about that connected to the whole mother thing quite well, as did the whole Irish/English experience. The characters came very quickly. It was like once my research began Joanne and her mother were immediately standing beside me.'