| Book Review
Recommended
Downtown
Pete Hamill reckons that he has lived in 14 different Manhattan
apartments. That fact alone might make him an expert on the
idiosyncrasies of the great metropolis, the colorful nooks and crannies
that rarely make the tourist guides or history books.
But, of course, Hamill is not merely a Manhattan resident. The city has
been his beat for more than four decades now, as a newspaperman, editor,
novelist and essayist. He puts all of those years to great use in his
latest book Downtown: My Manhattan.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the subsequent rebuilding effort,
have generated great interest in downtown Manhattan. But for Hamill,
downtown is not merely the area around the World Trade Center site, or
around City Hall, or even below Canal Street. Hamill freely admits he
has a highly subjective definition of downtown, which at times allows
him to meander all the way to Times Square. But this is all for the
benefit of the reader. As Hamill wanders about the city, his vivid,
compelling stories of New York’s people and places are told with equal
dashes of journalism and poetry.
Hamill leads the reader through the downtown streets, which ran red with
blood during the New York City Draft Riots. Then there are the cafes and
pubs, which drew artists from all over the world to the great bohemian
“Village.” But what makes this narrative so unique is the way Hamill is
able to interweave New York’s history with his own experience in the
city as the Brooklyn-born son of immigrants from Belfast. One
outstanding moment is when Hamill’s mother, noting her son’s awe at the
city’s skyscrapers, reminds him that he’s seen such a place once before:
Oz, a reference to the wondrous city from the famous Judy Garland movie.
Hamill’s last novel was the best selling Forever, which followed an
immortal Irish immigrant from 18th-century Ireland to September 11, 2001
in Manhattan. Downtown can be seen as a companion volume about the city
that inspired that novel. ($23.95 / 304 pages / Little Brown).
Fiction
Empire Rising
 Another fascinating Manhattan story unfolds in Thomas Kelly’s third
novel Empire Rising. The story is about the construction of a massive
skyscraper in a tense city, where the people are unsure of what exactly
is awaiting them in the future. That may sound a bit like New York in
the wake of 9/11, but in fact Empire Rising is set in the early days of
the Great Depression, when the Empire State Building was erected. Kelly
masterfully uses this event to paint a broad portrait of New York at
this time, from striving artists to crooked politicians to IRA gunmen on
the run. Kelly’s work is particularly interesting in its exploration of
the Irish immigrant wave of the 1920s and 1930s, when Ireland was both
wearied by, yet still immersed in civil war.
Construction of the Empire State Building began on St. Patrick’s Day,
1930. Al Smith, the beloved Irish- American battered by anti-Catholicism
during his presidential run in 1928, was in charge of the project.
Michael Briody is one of many immigrants working on the job, but in
Kelly’s hands he is as vital and vivid a character as any political
kingmaker. Briody is still fighting for the cause in Ireland, yet is
also drawn to his new life in America by Grace Masterson, an artist who
lives in a houseboat off of the East River. Trouble starts when we learn
that Grace is also involved with a Tammany Hall henchman. Thus, Briody,
and the reader, are thrust into Kelly’s world of machine hacks and
working men. As with his previous novels The Rackets and Payback, few
writers working today depict working class New York with Kelly’s detail
and affection. This time around, though, Kelly adds on additional
layers, such as Jazz Agey night life, clubhouse machinations and
real-life historical figures, such as Smith, as well as the ambitious
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. All of this makes Empire Rising Kelly’s
finest achievement to date. ($25 / 390 pages / FSG).
A Long Long Way
 Irish playwright and novelist Sebastian Barry uses war in a very
different way in his stark new novel A Long Long Way. Set as World War I
is beginning, A Long Long Way tells the story of Willie Dunne, who
leaves Dublin, his family, as well as the girl he plans to marry to
fight the Germans. Dunne is swiftly introduced to the shocking horror of
war and pines for home. But when he gets a chance to go back home,
political tensions have arrived there as well,
leaving Dunne feeling adrift.
Barry’s novel is ultimately an insightful look at war, politics and the
human heart.
($24.95 / 292 pages /Viking)
Collared
Irish Voice columnist Mike Farragher has used the priest sex abuse
scandals as the backdrop for his new thriller Collared. Farragher’s book
looks at two New Jersey brothers who were abused by their parish priest.
One becomes a reporter who exposes the terrible secrecy cloaking the
church. The other, however, has himself become a priest, and dedicated
his life to making the world a better place. But when a powerful church
official learns that this caring priest’s brother is the crusading
columnist, the trouble has just begun. Farragher’s book has an authentic
feel for the Jersey parishes in which Collared is set, and manages to
explore a sensitive topic without descending into mere polemics.
Collared takes a twist when a killer who may or may not be tied to the
church emerges, leading two scarred brothers to confront not just their
past, but the present. (Go to
http://www.collared.net).
Non-Fiction
Paddy Whacked
Best known for his searing portrait of the Hell’s Kitchen Irish gang The
Westies, author T.J. English has now turned his attention to the broader
story of Irish-American organized crime in Paddy Whacked: The Untold
Story of the Irish American Gangster.
English goes all the way back to early 19th Century New York where the
seeds of organized crime were watered by
desperation and political corruption. Along the way we meet a rogue’s
gallery of charmers and killers from New York, Kansas City and
elsewhere. There’s Owney Madden, “Mad Dog” Coll and “Bugs” Moran, not to
mention the FBI’s most wanted man, South Boston’s Whitey Bulger.
English’s sections on The Westies, not surprisingly, are outstanding.
English fills a much-need hole in the publishing world by finally
exploring the full history of Irish gangsters.
($27.95 / 480 pages
/Regan Books). Washington Gone Crazy
Fifty years ago, one of the most infamous characters in American history
finally met a fitting fate. After years of abusing political enemies,
Senator Joe McCarthy shriveled under the glare of a hot light he himself
switched on.
But according to an explosive new book, Senator Pat McCarran, the son of
Irish immigrants, may in fact have had a greater impact on American
political life than McCarthy. While McCarthy was
getting in front of all the cameras, it was McCarran who was
instrumental in actually getting laws in the books. Some of those laws
were among the most regrettable of the 20th-century. Among them, it was
McCarran who was responsible for
clogging detention centers at Ellis Island, where immigrants who were
thought to be
subversive were detained. It goes without
saying that this is an ironic legacy for a politician who himself was
the child of immigrants. But then again, as Michael Ybarra’s mammoth new
biography of McCarran notes, McCarran’s life was filled with
complications and ironies.
In Washington Gone Crazy, Ybarra – a former Wall Street Journal reporter
– outlines McCarran’s rise to power, as well as his parents’ painful
trip from Ireland to the U.S.
Despite his illiterate parents, the young McCarran became a successful
rancher, then a judge and attorney. When the Great Depression rolled
around, McCarran rode the Franklin D. Roosevelt wave into the Senate.
But these two Democrats quickly clashed. McCarran ultimately earned a
reputation as a fierce anti-Communist. For all of his shortcomings,
McCarran’s climb to the top of the American political heap should be
recognized as a particularly Irish-American kind of success story.
($35 / 854 pages/Steerforth).
Poetry
A Bend in the Road: Poems by Eamon J. McEneaney
Eamon J. McEneaney was in the World Trade Center on February 26,
1993. He emerged from the frightening conflagration as a hero. McEneaney,
all of whose grandparents came to the U.S. from Ireland, worked for
Cantor Fitzgerald, and eventually rose to the position of vice
president. When a bomb exploded underneath the twin towers that February
day 12 years ago, McEneaney led 60 coworkers through dark and
smoke-filled stairways to safety.
Sadly, McEneaney did not escape on 9/11. Now, thanks to McEneaney’s wife
Bonnie as well as a circle of friends at Cornell, one of McEneaney’s
wishes has become a reality. A Bend in the Road: Poems by Eamon J.
McEneaney has been published.
The poems reflect McEneaney’s many interests: sports, family, humor,
city life and, of course, “all things Irish.” In a brief Foreword,
Kenneth A. McClane, W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature at Cornell,
even compares McEneaney’s poems to those of Yeats. “Like Yeats,
McEneaney imagines the world awash in splendor, politics and
announcements; like Yeats, McEneaney knows that the mythic is tied to
history and the heart.” But there is also a sense of mortality, of an
obsession with death, in other McEneaney poems, something that surely
heightened following the 1993 Trade Center bombing.
McEneaney’s wife Bonnie writes in a touching introduction. “Although
published posthumously, this book of poetry brings to reality one of the
dreams (Eamon) had – to publish his poems so that they could be shared
with others, and be a frame of reflection. His poetry serves as a
reminder of the fragility of life, that each day we are given is a
precious gift – this should never be forgotten.”
($30 /137 pages /Cornell University Library)..
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