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A Sampling of the Latest Irish Books
Recommended
John O’Hara was a best-selling writer whose novels were made into
several films, including the memorable Butterfield 8 starring Elizabeth
Taylor.
Yet O’Hara’s name tends to get lost amidst O’Neill’s, Fitzgerald’s and
others when the subject of great Irish American writers comes up. Perhaps
it’s because O’Hara wrote of urbane, upper-middle-class, seemingly non-ethnic
city dwellers. Perhaps, as Geoffrey Wolff’s unusual new biography The
Art of Burning Bridges suggests, it’s because O’Hara was often
an insufferable lout.
He drank hard, was nasty and spiteful. Yet he could be tender and loving.
And one thing Wolff makes clear is that being Irish Catholic was central
to John O’Hara’s personality.
“Of all the social complexities that spurred John O’Hara’s anger, pride,
envy, squinting focus, truculence, and art, his Irishness led the charge,”
writes Wolff, author of three nonfiction books, a biography and a memoir,
as well as six novels.
“His Irishness was the obdurate wall against which John O’Hara beat his
fist and the ivied, protective wall behind which he huddled with his clan.”
And a big Irish Catholic clan it was, growing up in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.
This was Molly McGuire country in the late 19th century, where coal mines
– and labor strife – dominated people’s lives, rich and poor. O’Hara was
born in 1905, one of eight O’Hara children. John’s Dad was a respected,
middle-class doctor, yet the family still felt like outsiders in the heavily
Protestant area.
O’Hara floated in and out of different schools, eventually making it
to New York where he contributed prolifically to The New Yorker magazine.
O’Hara’s first novel Appointment in Samarra sold well, though some critics
panned it, as they did much of his later work. This only fueled O’Hara’s
inner demons. He rubbed elbows (and sometimes threw fists) with the likes
of Dorothy Parker and F. Scott Fitzgerald, at “21” and the Stork Club and
even out in Hollywood. These sections are some of the strongest in Wolff’s
book, which is very informal by the standards of most biographies, yet enlightening
nevertheless.
For all the success, one ranting character in Butterfield 8 captures
what must have remained a deeply unresolved conflict throughout O’Hara’s
life:
“I want to tell you something about myself that will help to explain
a lot of things about me. You might as well hear it now. First of all, I
am a Mick… I wear Brooks clothes and I don’t eat salad with a spoon and
I probably could play five-goal polo in two years, but I am a Mick. Still
a Mick.” (373 pages)
The Art of Burning Bridges
Non-fiction
He’s already a best-selling memoirist, actor and wit, yet Malachy McCourt
has found himself yet another career deconstructing items cherished by the
Irish. First he did it with his insightful short book about the history
of the song “Danny Boy.” Now Malachy is back, telling the story of the
Claddagh Ring, that symbol of loyalty, friendship, and love worn
by millions of Irish people the world over.
As McCourt notes in The Claddagh Ring: Ireland’s Cherished Symbol
of Friendship, Loyalty and Love, this is far more than an Irish phenomenon.
“There seem to be no demarcation lines between the types of people who
buy and wear and give this ring. It’s fashionable among liars, loonies,
rockers like U2, wild men like Oasis, actresses like Julia Roberts, Jennifer
Aniston, and Mia Farrow and now – get this – the rapper community,” McCourt
writes.
McCourt explains that the Claddagh Ring is one part of a group
of “finger rings” dating from the Roman era. It is, famously, formed by
two clasped hands, symboliz114 Irish America dec/jan 2004
Fictioning faith, love, loyalty, and friendship. The ring is said to
have been initially crafted some 400 years ago in Claddagh, a fishing village
on Galway Bay. All in all, McCourt’s book will have you staring at that
glint of gold on your finger with a whole new appreciation. (109 pages)
Claddagh ring
Fiction
Adrian McKinty’s background is, to say the least, a complicated mix of
heartbreak and promise. He has brought this to his second novel, a dark
thriller set in New York City.
McKinty grew up in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. Yet
he went on to study politics at Oxford University. He then embarked on what
he himself calls “a failed legal career.” So he moved to New York City in
the early 1990s. He found work as a security guard, mailman, door-to-door
salesman, construction worker, bartender, rugby coach and more.
Such a combination of the intellectual life and the street life can be
hard to bring to the printed page, but McKinty pulls it off with Dead
I Well May Be.
McKinty’s novel centers around a young illegal Irish immigrant in New
York who opts for a criminal career over unemployment.
Michael Forsythe becomes an enforcer for Irish mobster Darkey White and
soon produces a disturbing number of corpses, waging a turf war on the streets
with other ethnic gangs.
As if that’s not dangerous enough, Forsythe falls for Darkey’s girlfriend.
Thus, we are set up for a surely violent showdown, with McKinty’s enemies
and allies both vying in different ways to take him down.
This is not what Forsythe planned when he left Ireland. But, as so many
generations before him did, he is forced to do what he must to survive.
“I didn’t want to go to America, I didn’t want to work for Darkey White.
I had my reasons. But I went,” writes McKinty, who has crafted a fast-paced
thriller with Dead I Well May Be. The sections dealing with early
1990s Harlem and the Bronx are particularly insightful and well-drawn. (320
pages/ Scribner’s)
Dead I Well May Be
No stranger to thrillers himself, New York Daily News columnist Dennis
Hamill has a new novel out called Sins of Two Fathers. Though the material
will be familiar enough to Hamill’s devoted fans, Sins of Two Fathers
is an interesting read, particularly its portrait of post-9/11 New York
City. There are the anthrax threats, airport frisks, and general tension
and anger so many city residents have, for better or worse, come to accept
as normal.
Hamill’s main character is Hank Tobin, an Irish-American Pulitzer Prize-winning
columnist whose aspiring journalist son gets into trouble chasing a story.
That trouble may, in fact, have been caused by an old enemy of Hank’s.
A decade earlier, Hank overheard a racist explain that his son had firebombed
the home of a minority family to keep the neighborhood white. Hank’s ensuing
story resulted in a ten-year prison sentence for the assailant. Is Hank’s
son now the focus of a revenge plot?
Meanwhile, Hank’s life is in a downward spiral. Divorced, and no longer
talking to his daughter, Hank’s only shot at redemption seems to be saving
his son from prison.
As in previous novels such as Fork in the Road and most recently Long
Time Gone, Hamill can be unapologetically sentimental and harshly unsentimental,
at times on the same page. He treats his characters seriously, and never
ventures far from the page-turning plot he establishes early and well. (384
pages/ Atria Books)
Sins of Two Fathers : A Novel
Venturing away from thrillers, and deep into the Irish past are two novels
by writers of note, both focusing on one extraordinary woman.
First there’s The Wild Irish, by Robin Maxwell. The best-selling
writer weaves three individual stories into an interesting historical tapestry.
There’s Grace O’Malley, the passionate clan chieftain and famed Irish
pirate, who visits the court of Elizabeth I to plead for the release of
Accompanying these two famous, powerful women on Maxwell’s ride is Bess,
who has her own often tragic past. Soon these lives are caught up in a swirl
of romance and rebellion in the 16th century. The Wild Irish is another
satisfying historical epic from Maxwell, whose past forays into material
such as this include The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn. (400 pages /William
Morrow)
The Wild Irish
Meanwhile, another Grace O’Malley book is being re-released, Morgan Llywelyn’s
Grania. Llywelyn covers much of the same turf as Maxwell, though
each author has their specialty: Maxwell has the sweep of powerful emotions,
Llywelyn the eye for historical accuracy and details. (412 pages/Forge)
Grania : She-King of the Irish Seas
Readers who’ve been meaning to look at these extraordinary lives and
times should take advantage and look at both of these books.
Young Adult
Eoin Colfer has made himself a nice living on the basis of his character
Artemis Fowl, often called the “Irish Harry Potter.” The books have proven
to be runaway best sellers, and a movie about the wily child anti-hero is
expected soon.
Colfer is now trying something new, introducing readers to a lovable
but troubled heroine, Meg Finn, in The Wish List.
Cast out of her home by her stepfather following her mother’s death,
Meg gets into more trouble than she can handle. As in Artemis Fowl, myth
mingles with reality and history when Meg and Belch (her partner in crime)
attempt to rob an elderly man named Lowrie McCall. Meg’s spirit becomes
the focus of a battle between the forces of good and evil.
Colfer always has time for laughs and poignancy amidst all the adventure,
and The Wish List has already proven to be as big a hit in Ireland
as the Artemis Fowl series. We’ll see soon if Americans, too, go for Colfer’s
change of pace. (256 pages/Hyperion)
The Wish List
PhotoGraphy
Paddy Linehan was an Irish school teacher with a passion for travel.
But, he says, the traveling passion took over. Linehan’s love for his native
country, however, is clear in a book he’s put together called Yesterday’s
Ireland.
This lavish book is a revealing look back at “American wakes” (for relatives
taking the boat to America), everyday life in the cities and the farms,
as well as tales told by horsemen, fishermen and other laborers.
Though Linehan’s text, and the stories he records, make for fine reading,
the photos in Yesterday’s Ireland steal the show.
The book is illustrated with hundreds of photographs, many from previously
unexplored sources. True, the book’s tone is ultimately nostalgic, and does
not focus on some of the harsher aspects of the past. Linehan has still
put together an enlightening and informative book. (256 pages/David & Charles)
Yesterday's Ireland
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