Breaking Away

Book excerpt: In the tradition of Playing with Fire and The Crazy Game comes a new memoir about a troubled hockey life. Patrick O'Sullivan was a kid with skills, with natural gifts that catapulted him into the spotlight and made NHL scouts rave. O’Sullivan seemed destined to become one of the next great hockey players in the world. But then it all went horribly wrong. In Breaking Away, Patrick O’Sullivan gives readers a disturbing account of ten years of ever escalating physical abuse and emotional cruelty at the hands of his father. When Patrick proved more skilled than other eight-year-olds, John O’Sullivan decided to dedicate his life to turning his son into the player he had always dreamed of becoming. Shouting at the top of his lungs, John O’Sullivan was the over-involved parent. Many of Patrick’s teammates and their parents and coaches thought it ended there. Few had an idea of the dysfunction and violence at the O’Sullivans' home. Breaking Away is a story about abuse, but it is also a story about triumph, as O'Sullivan revisits the ghosts of his past.