Book Review: The Heart in Winter

 By Kevin Barry

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Old-time Western

• Where I bought this book: The Corner Bookstore, New York City 

• Why I bought this book: Kevin Barry is one of Ireland's finest writers  

 *******

  

    Sparse, with tight writing and finely drawn characters, Barry has turned a cliched genre into into a tale worthy of Samuel Beckett.

    Tom Rourke is your basic cowpoke, an Irish immigrant living and drinking in the vast stretches around Butte, Montana, in the 1890s. He drinks too much, likes his dope too much, and tries to avoid working in the mines. Instead, he makes money writing love letters for other lonely men who are seeking mail-order brides.

    But when one of the strange denizens of the town finds a woman, name of Polly Gillespie, to marry him, Tom takes a shine to her. So they run, heading out further west, with a hopeful destination of San Francisco. But Long Anthony Harrington takes exception to his bride being stolen, and sends out a posse to bring her back.

    You see, Tom and Polly had a plan, such as it was

They reckoned up the provisions they had brought. It was enough for a few days. The horse would get them as far as Pocatello if they didn't bake it and from there as unknowns they could move by the rail. He massaged the horse's legs with an expert set to his mouth as if he knew what the fuck he was doing. 

    Such is life in the Old West, and Barry gives it a new shine -- squalid and dangerous, profane and perverse. He describes the couple engaging in debauchery and eating mushrooms on the high plains. There is violence and emptiness. It is dark, with stretches of hope.

They rode on. They rode double. The day was sharp and bright. They were mellow of mood if not entirely at a distance from the sadness natural to both of them, and these they knew were sadness unanswerable. She lay her face to the hollow of his back and closed her eyes a while. She felt his chest swell out and knew it was the fact of her embracing that made him proud.

    There is plainness and a lack of fancy in Barry's writing, which is not to be savored like a fine French wine, but admired and devoured like a shot of whisky and a pint of Guinness. 

Book Review: Small Mercies

 By Dennis Lehane

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Historical fiction

• Where I bought this book: Barnes & Noble, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I read about the Boston busing crisis in Common Ground, by J. Anthony Lukas, so this one resonated with me

• Bookmark used: Hobart Book Village, in Hobart, N.Y., which I visited the summer of 2024   

 ********* 

    This novel, of course, takes as its theme the Boston busing crisis, in the summer of 1974, when a federal judge drew up a plan and ordered the Boston Public Schools to desegregate. 

    But it encompasses so much more: racism, the Boston Mafia, a family crisis, insular neighborhoods, drug addictions, poverty, and a hot, dry summer in a city already boiling over with racial turmoil.

    It's a rich character study of the Southie neighborhood, its denizens and its surroundings. It's moving, melancholy, sometimes funny, and a tale that reverberates today.

    It centers around Mary Patricia Fennessy, known to one and all as Mary Pat, a pillar of her South Boston community, a stout defender of her Southie heritage and all that entails. But as she gets older, having been abandoned by two husbands, seen one son fight in Vietnam and die from a drug addiction, and her only daughter in serious trouble, her rage ramps up. She begins asking questions.

    Is the Boston Mafia, led by Marty Butler and his men, a protector of Southie? Are the Black people over in Roxbury and Mattapan really just a bunch of lazy thugs? Is her Irish Catholic heritage, and its people, really something to lord over others? And most importantly: Did she raise her children right?   

    We get to know the leaders of the anti-busing brigade, some real and some fictional.  There's Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, whom they call Teddy, because he was one of them. But since he defended busing, they now call him a race traitor, and we see as they assault and spit on him during the demonstrations.

    And we learn about the ugliness of the neighborhood kids who celebrate racism, and the Black folks who survive it. (Well, not all of them survive. There the mysterious death of one Black kid who was in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time, and the impact it had on Black people, white people, and the cops who investigate it.)

    Lehane, born and reared in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, has written several novels exploring his hometown and its surroundings. His genres have included mysteries and crime, and topics have included violence, loyalty, and a gritty underworld. This one has them all.

Book Review: Long Island

 By Colm Tóibín

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Irish fiction

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I'm a fan of Tóibín's work  

 ***

     The opening here sets up a memorable conflict: A man knocks on the door of his neighbor's house. Relates how her husband got his wife pregnant. When the child is born, he says, he is going to drop the kid on her doorstep, and it will be her problem. Then he leaves.

    Thus we return to the trials and tribulations of Eilis Fiorello, nee Lacey, an Irish woman from the County Wexford who emigrated to Brooklyn and now lives on Long Island with her husband Tony and their two teenage children. It's an uncomfortable arrangement. Tony's large Italian family -- parents, two brothers, their wives, and children -- live in four clustered houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, some 50 miles from New York.

    So far, so good. The story is interesting; the characters -- especially the mother-in-law, Francesca -- are colorful, and the writing, so far, is tight and easy. 

    But midway through, things go off the rails.

    We first met Eilis in the novel Brooklyn. Saoirse Ronan played her in the movie of the same name. The dust jacket on this novel calls her Tóibín's "most compelling and unforgettable character."

    But she's not.

    Instead, she's a morose, secretive, lost woman trying to find her way in a world she doesn't care to understand. Now 40, and living during the 1970s, she assures one and all she does not want the baby, does not like her living arrangements, and does not enjoy her in-laws' claustrophobic lifestyles. The feelings are mutual (except grandma wants to raise the kid).

    Not to give away more of the plot, but eventually Eilis returns to her hometown for a visit. (I am sure in the eventual movie there will be montages of the town of Enniscorthy and the surrounding green fields, and it will be lovely.)

    Here, the plot really breaks down. None of the characters -- the ones in America or the ones in Ireland -- are particularly likeable. In many ways, they border on stereotypes: The Italians are insular and deceitful. The Irish are moody and critical. Their activities are mundane: Having tea, drinking in the pub, sneaking around the town.

    The writing also seems to decline here. Perhaps it's the characters' whinging, or their incessant gossiping. And we can see the ending coming, although by now we could care less about their lives and their futures.

Book Review: We Are the Brennans

 By Tracey Lange

• Pub Date: 2021

• Genre: Irish Fiction

• Where I bought obtained this book: A Little Free Library in the Wrigleyville section of Chicago 

• Why I bought  obtained this book: My mother was a Brennan from the drumlins and lakes of County Monaghan 

 ******

 

    Based on the blurbs on the novel's cover and comments from friends who have read it, I was thinking I may not like this book. "It's a lot of family drama and bad choices," said one.

    So I was expecting something overtly dramatic, with a soap-opera vibe.

    But it was none of that. Instead, I got a story with solid writing, well-defined characters, familiar settings, and tales of family love, lore, and longing.

    In short, I liked it. I really liked it.

    Oh, it had some questionable plot twists. When the big secret was reveled, the story just kept going, heading for another big reveal. As one character said, he didn't want to see another potential "emotional mess ... just when they were past the worst of it."

    And neither of those secrets was a surprise; indeed, you wondered why the close-knit Brennans hadn't already figured them out.

    As the novel opens, we find Sunday, the only girl in an Irish-American clan with three brothers, needing help. Five years before, she moved from the family home in Westchester County, N.Y., for Los Angeles. She left behind a devoted fiancé -- considered to already be an honorary Brennan; an elderly, widowed father; and three brothers, including Denny, considered the alpha male. Why she left is the first big mystery.

    But now, she finds herself lost in LA,  with a crappy job, a lousy apartment, and a drunken driving charge.

    She heads back home, and as she gets re-acquainted with the family, we learn their ways. Their stories are told in chapters by a narrator who knows them intimately and can see inside their heads. It's a fine way to tell the tale from all sides

    All of the Brennans have made, and continue to make, bad choices. But they back up each other -- most of the time -- although they keep many secrets. When and how those secrets are revealed are the heart and soul of the story.    

    It's a good family tale, even if, sometimes, you just want to give them a well deserved dope slap.

Book Review: The Parting Glass

 

• Author: Gina Marie Guadagnino

• Where I bought this book: Barnes & Noble Bookstore, West Chester, Ohio

• Why I bought this book: It shares a title with a great old Irish song

******

    Mary Ballard, born Maire O'Farren, left her home and her job in the west of Ireland for reasons unknown -- but eventually explained -- sometime in the early 19th Century.

    Her ensuing life in New York City as an Irish immigrant, a lady's maid, and denizen near the old Five Points neighborhood tells a tale of love and loss, heartbreak, and high living among poverty and destitution.

    Guadagnino's debut novel is a wonderful read.

    It's chock full of Irish history, New York City history, and the history of the Irish in New York. It touches on subjects including LGBT love, the empowerment of women, immigration, and the life of the rich and the poor in the 19th Century. 

    O'Farren -- or Ballard -- caters to her mistress, Charlotte Walden, a wealthy young woman of leisure whose sole goal in life is to find a wealthy husband. Walden, however, would rather love the man who runs the stables at her estate, near Washington Park in old New York City. That man, unknown to the  Charlotte, is Ballard's twin brother, Seanin. Of course, the Waldens are unaware of Charlotte's love for a common man.

    One more thing: Ballard holds in her heart her own unrequited and unspoken love for Miss Walden.

    But that's not all.

    On her nights off, Ballard hits the bars that line the streets of New York's lower east side. She finds a home at the Hibernian, run by Dermot, the man who sponsored and stood for her in New York. There, she meets another lover, a black woman who works as a prostitute and dreams of running her own brothel.

    Meanwhile, Dermot has his own connections with the Tammany Hall Irish who run that part of New York City, along with some ties to the Irish rebels back home. Here's is where Seanin returns to the story.

    Eventually, they all come together in a surprising and intriguing climax. Guadagnino does an impressive jobs with her research, her historical knowledge, and her writing.

Book Review: Days Without End

 Days Without End, by Sebastian Barry

    At one point in reading this painful novel, I was thinking of putting it aside forever. But I ploughed through, and eventually, it was worth it. But beware this is a depressing, violent, and traumatic book. 

    The plot, such as it is, is secondary to the descriptions of the scenes and the settings. And while the writing is evocative, it can be incessant at times. And some of those vivid descriptions deal with long passages about slogging through rain, snow and mud, or with hatred, fear, and slaughter. 

    The voice telling us all this comes from the main character and protagonist, one Thomas McNulty. He is a remarkable person to tell this story of the wild west, the Civil War, and the attempted genocide of the Native population. He is an Irish immigrant whose family died in the Great Hunger, a soldier, and a gay man who is gender fluid. He enjoys dressing as a woman, for a job, in the theater, and in his personal life. His loving relationship with John Cole, another male character, is a constant throughout the book.

    Barry gives McNulty a voice in the style of an uneducated person of the mid-19th Century. He uses language, terms, and expresses ideas that likely were common for the time, although considered offensive, if not derogatory and unacceptable, today. Yet, the gay love and transgender issues are treated in a matter-of-fact manner. While the two men often hide their love from others, they are sometimes accepted as a couple. In a passage late in the book, McNulty describes how he is comfortable with being gender fluid.

I am easy as a woman, taut as a man. All my limbs is broke as a man, and fixed good as a woman. I lie down with the soul of a woman and wake with the same. I don't foresee no time where this ain't true no more. Maybe I was born a man and growing into a woman.

    The story follows Thomas, or Thomasina, from about the time he is 12 when he and his partner, often called Handsome John Cole, run away from their orphanage and set out to explore the country. They get jobs as female dancers in a mining town, which is otherwise without women. It's not a sexual thing, but about companionship, and it is an enjoyable experience for Thomasina.

    The pair then join the cavalry. This is where the book bogs down. Pages and entire chapters are dedicated to their travels and travails though the mountainous west, the intricacies and politics of army life, and the murder and dehumanization that occurs during the Indian Wars.

    Then we read similar tedious descriptions about the battles of the Civil War.

    Eventually, John Cole, Thomas, sometimes as Thomasina, and a Native child they have adopted settle in Tennessee with an old Army buddy and a few others. But even that life does not go smoothly, and there are more long-winded tales of unpleasantness.

    But for the most part, it is a satisfying ending worth getting to.

Book Review: Rockaway Blue

 Rockaway Blue, by Larry Kirwan

    It's almost three years after the 9/11 attacks, and the Murphy family remains in turmoil.

    Police Lt. Brian Murphy lies in his grave. His widow Rose and young son Liam remain lost in their big house by the ocean, unable to live up to the memory of the man who is revered as a martyred hero. His younger brother Kevin, a firefighter, still lives and works in his Rockaway neighborhood, fending off adulthood and his brother's shadow.

 

   His parents, NYPD Detective Sgt. Jimmy Murphy, retired, and childhood sweetheart Maggie, find themselves floundering, their Irish Catholism hanging heavy on their souls; growing old, growing apart, and unclear of both their futures and their pasts.

    Into this steps Kirwan, himself an Irish emigrant who moved to New York in the 1970s, and lived the authentic immigrant experience. 

    Kirwan is a polymath. He's a singer and songwriter, the founder and force of the Irish American rock band Black 47. He's a playwright and novelist. He wrote Paradise Square, a musical about the convergence of Irish and African music in the mid-19th Century, which is opening in Chicago. He is the host of Celtic Crush, a widely popular radio program on SiriusXM.

    In Rockaway, Kirwan wants to write of the Irish community's falling apart, losing its ethnic sense, and no longer dominating the city's police and fire brigades. But the overwhelming novel tries to do too much. Its themes run the gamut -- questions of faith and family, of community and identity, of the changing definitions of manhood and womanhood, of love and marriage, of the shifting cultures, even of the rivalry between the Mets and the Yankees.

    Still, it centers around a single, burning question: Why was Brian -- who died a hero because he ran back inside after leading people to safety -- at the World Trade Center before the first plane hit? Detective Sgt. Murphy's unofficial investigation raises the hackles of his former tribe as he delves into the issues described above. and his efforts at easing his family's guilt and heartbreak sometimes makes them worse.

    It's an uneasy tension that careens through the book, showing that life, tragedy, and death isn't always as clear-cut as it seems.