Cissie Hamm, free-spirited & glamorous, once served early-morning coffee to Jackie Kennedy Onassis & believed that housework consisted of matching belts to the correct coats. A ray of light in the puddle-grey town of Waterford in the 1960s & 1970s, she was both abattoir-owner & guest-house landlady. She was exactly what every self-proclaimed nancy boy needs in his life. Aeibhear's personal voyage takes us through the buildings of his childhood city, his grandmother's abattoir, the mental hospital where his father works, & the Folly Church where he serves as an altar boy. It is the story of a city & the story of his journey from fear to pride. But the most important character throughout is the entertaining, fashion-conscious, poker-playing Cissie, his lively & witty little grandmother. She taught him by example how to survive & prosper, & how to live with style & verve. From the book: ' Living happily on the edge of Cissie's life all through my childhood had been all that I had wanted, but it, amongst other things, meant that I could never talk to the very ones I now longed for: boys of my own age. At the core of my dawning understanding of sex & romance was the absolute certainty that I would always be outside it, undesired, unwanted. I could imagine sex between men quite easily; I just couldn't imagine ever being involved in it. In this disturbing world of unfulfillable desire, I was scared. Cissie's abattoir saved me.'