By Cara Jepsen
When Harding was seven, she started having psychotic episodes that eventually included terrifying visions and demonic voices telling her to die. But it wasn’t all bad, she says. “All of my hallucinations were not horrifying. Some were extremely pleasant and I took refuge in some of them–like the Blessed Mother talking to me, or imaginary friends who were creatures that were protective of me.”
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After dropping out of high school and bouncing around the States for a couple of years, Harding spent six months traveling in Ireland. “I was enraptured with anything Irish–Joyce, Beckett, Wilde, Shaw,” she says. “I felt really drawn to go back there.”
Harding’s father loved the book–but not Frank McCourt’s follow-up, ‘Tis, “probably because the story reflects a lot of his own stuff,” she says. “My father can write his own show about that.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jim Newberry.
