Breaking Away: A Harrowing True Story of Resilience, Courage, and Triumph

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.