Below the Big Blue Sky - Anna McPartlin
About the book
How does a family pick up the pieces, when the one person who held them all together has gone?
When forty-year-old Rabbit Hayes dies, she leaves behind a family broken by grief. Her mother Molly is distraught and in danger of losing her faith. Her father Jack spends hour upon hour in the family attic, poring over his old diaries, losing himself in the past.
Rabbit's brother Davey finds himself suddenly guardian to her twelve-year-old daughter Juliet. Juliet might be able to fill a hole in Davey's heart - but how can he help Juliet through her grief when he can barely cope with his own?
Meanwhile, Rabbit's sister Grace is struggling with the knowledge that she carries the same gene that made her sister ill, and Rabbit's best friend Marjorie is lost, struggling to remain a part of a family she has always wished was her own now that her link to them is gone.
But even though the Hayes family are all fighting their own battles, they are drawn together by their love for Rabbit, and their love for each other. In the years that follow her death they find new ways to celebrate and remember her, to find humour and hope in the face of tragedy, and to live life to its fullest, as Rabbit would have wanted.
Below the Big Blue Sky will make you laugh, cry and shout with joy for the colourful, unruly Hayes family as they battle with the loss of their beloved Rabbit, the daughter, mother, sister and friend, who in her own crazy way taught each of them how to live, and goes on showing them how to love from beyond the grave.
About the author
Anna McPartlin is a novelist and scriptwriter from Dublin, who has written for TV serial dramas featured on BBC UK, RTE Ireland and A&E America. She has been writing adult fiction for over ten years, and also writes for children under the name Bannie McPartlin. She lives with her husband Donal and their four dogs.
Discover more about the book and author
Listen to a sample of the Below the Big Blue Sky audiobook.
Read or listen to this interview with Anna McPartlin.
Watch this Q&A with Anna McPartlin.
Our Librarian’s Review
Reviewed by Liz
When Rabbit Hayes dies aged 40, she leaves behind a young daughter and a close-knit family, who must come to terms with their loss.
Below the Big Blue Sky follows Rabbit’s family and friends as they try to negotiate life without her. Most poignantly there is the grief of her daughter, Bunny, whose bewilderment, and loss are described sympathetically.
The Hayes are a big family. Molly, the matriarch who supports everyone else but struggles to cope with her grief, finds a new cause to try to fill the hole left by her daughter; Jack her father, who retreats to his attic and finds solace in memories; sister Grace who has to deal with the prospect of the same gene which caused her sister’s cancer, and brother Davey, who surprisingly is asked to look after Rabbit’s daughter, Bunny, when he returns to America to resume his career as a successful musician.
Whilst the book is sad, it is also funny. There are some great comic moments; Molly’s involvement in the kidnap of water board workers, the exploits of Grace’s four teenage boys and Rabbit’s best friend Marjorie rebuilding her life and relationship with her mother.
I would recommend this book, for while it deals honestly with grief and loss, it also looks forward with hope, love and joy. And whilst it is a sequel to The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes, reading this book is in no way a prerequisite to enjoying Below the Big Blue Sky.