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Summary
Summary
"Epic in its scope but relentlessly compelling in its storytelling--not a common combination-- Broken Irish is a splendidly readable and richly textured novel. Edward J. Delaney is an enormously gifted writer." --Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain and Perfume River
"Truly indelible. . . . [Delaney] cares about details and understands their importance to the larger themes of loss, desperation, and betrayed loyalties. His characters are not merely vehicles for ideas, but rather fully realized, familiar people, whose failures are heartbreakingly authentic." -- Boston Globe
As the millennium approaches, "Southie" is still a place where little distinguishes mob bosses from pillars of industry, the bullied from the bullies, and the pious from the pitiful. In this tough Boston neighborhood, six lives are about to converge: Jimmy, an alcoholic writer, whose life is unalterably changed after witnessing an accident; Jeanmarie, a teenage runaway, whose quest for independence leads down a dark path; Christopher, a young Catholic school dropout with a gnawing secret; Colleen, a war widow whose grief has blinded her to the needs of her son; Father John, a priest on the eve of forced retirement; and Rafferty, a wealthy businessman who hires a ghostwriter to tell his story.
In Broken Irish , Delaney trains his journalist's ear, his filmmaker's eye, and his writer's heart on each of their stories--creating a driven and deeply human narrative that pierces the core of the American experience. He also gives us a captivating portrait of South Boston in the late-1990s--a time when "Whitey Bulger has evaporated into the ether but his boys still kick around on the street corners . . . waiting for Whitey's Second Coming."
Edward J. Delaney is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and author of four works of fiction, including Follow the Sun and Broken Irish , both published by Turtle Point Press. He lives and teaches in Rhode Island.
Author Notes
Edward J. Delaney is an award-winning author, journalist, and filmmaker. His books include the novels Follow the Sun , Broken Irish , and Warp & Weft , and the short story collection The Drowning and Other Stories . His short fiction has also been published in the Atlantic and Best American Short Stories , and featured on PRI's Selected Shorts program. Among other honors, he has received the PEN/New England Award, O. Henry Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He is also the co-author of Born to Play , by Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia. As a journalist, Delaney has written for publications including the Denver Post and Chicago Tribune , received the National Education Reporting Award, and has served as an editor at the Neiman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. As a filmmaker, he has directed and produced documentary films including The Times Were Never So Bad: The Life of Andre Dubus and Library of the Early Mind .
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Delaney has also spent time in Georgia, Florida, and Colorado, and now lives in Rhode Island, where he teaches at Roger Williams University and edits the literary journal Mount Hope .
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Broken Irish Americans from South Boston, that isand there's plenty of brokenness to go around at the turn of the 21st century.Delaney plots his narrative through parallel story lines, all of which elegantly converge at the end of the novel. Jimmy Gilbride has been an alcoholic for about 20 of his 32 years, and after untold bingesand a recent auto accidenthe gets a job helping to ghostwrite the memoirs of Terrance Walsh Rafferty, an entrepreneur from Southie who made good and is now worth millions. Ironically, Jimmy has given up drinking (for the most part) so he can do this job, but it's just the moment when all those years of abuse are beginning to disclose problems with his liver. We also learn of the unhappy life of Colleen Coogan and her estranged 13-year-old son Christopher, who drops out of school and wanders around town, most days ending up in the library where he can indulge his passion in reading about medieval legends. In the evenings Christopher shadows Jeanmarie, a 16-year-old who's also left school to live with her egregious boyfriend Bobby, a loser who smuggles beer home to their squalid apartment from his job at the Liquor Mart. She has dreams of making it big as a model, dreams fed by slimy Marty, who takes pornographic pictures and encourages her to think he's going to make her a star. Finally, we learn of Father John, a soon-to-retire whiskey priest of dubious morality whom Colleen hopes will serve as a spiritual adviser to help her with Christopher. It turns out Father John has his own family secrets to bear.Delaney keeps all of the incipient tragedy beautifully and heartbreakingly balanced through artful plotting and an unadorned but graceful prose style. ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The broken Irish whom Delaney tracks in his elegantly written and compellingly plotted novel are denizens of the mean streets of South Boston. The tough neighborhood has taken its toll on the six haunted people whose lives are about to converge. Jimmy, an alcoholic who goes off the booze after witnessing a horrible accident, is commissioned by Rafferty, a wealthy businessman, to ghostwrite his autobiography, sections of which function as a story within a story. Rafferty's hardscrabble youth in the tough Boston neighborhood has taught him all the ruthless skills he needs to succeed at the highest levels of business. Meanwhile, Maureen, a war widow, is worried sick about her secretive 13-year-old son, Christopher, yet her heartbreaking pleas for help from the priests at her parish go forever unheeded. Christopher takes up with teenage runaway Jeanmarie, whose stubborn quest for independence from her domineering father has tragic consequences. And in the background, lonely Father John faces his forced retirement with equal parts denial and guilt. In an artfully constructed story that sees all six characters' lives intertwine, Delaney tackles corporate corruption, the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, gun violence, and, especially, alcoholism (in searing passages on the ravages of drink that recall Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, 1947).--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Southie, where the accent is more Irish than Boston. From where you might be able to get away but never escape. Journalist and filmmaker Delaney (Warp & Weft) tells the story of a handful of people in South Boston at the end of the 20th century. Jimmy is driving drunk behind three laughing young men in a convertible whose driver is braking and starting, trying to dislodge the one perched on the back; when he witnesses the neck-snapping fall, Jimmy vows never to drink again. Colleen and her husband pledged to get out of Southie, but after his death in a foreign war, she's still there with her adolescent son, Christopher, who has shut her out of his life. Father John started his priesthood in Southie, and now he is back, on the brink of a forced retirement. Jeanmarie, a Southie teenager, drops out of school and moves in with her boyfriend. These divergent stories come together in a compelling tale of desperation, lost opportunities, and revenge-all things Southie has come to represent. Each character is richly portrayed, and each stirs conflicting emotions in the reader. VERDICT A masterpiece; highly recommended for a wide audience.-Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll. Lib. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.