| 20 Great Books By Tom Deignan
Irish America’s list of essential books for the informed Irish-American.
Producing a list of 20 books which every Irish-American should read was
both joyous and painful. The joy, obviously, came as we pored over the many
volumes, revisiting the beautiful sentences, the haunted memories. The pain,
however, was knowing that, inevitably, some brilliant books would have to
be excluded. Authors who should have, but could not make this list did so
for a variety of reasons. For example, we decided to focus solely on books
in which the author and book itself had a fairly explicit Irish-American
connection. This left the brilliant fiction of John Kennedy Toole, J.F.
Powers and Flannery O’Connor (not to mention John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
John O’Hara and William Faulkner) just outside the fence.
Authors such as Jimmy Breslin, Dennis Smith and Tom Fleming, meanwhile,
have produced such an impressive body of work that it was tough to single
out just one of their books.
Other books of great merit are sadly out of print or very difficult to
find.
Then there is the great Finley Peter Dunne — arguably the first great
chronicler of Irish America. Unfortunately, the bulk of his late 19th and
early 20th century writings come in the form of newspaper columns, which
don’t quite adapt well to book form.
In the end, each reader will be pained to see that their particular favourite
Irish-American book or author did not quite make it to this list. Feel free
to let us know. Until then, let the debate begin. Here (in no particular
order) are our picks for the Top 20 books every Irish-American should read.
The Encyclopaedia of the Irish in America
Editor Michael Glazier
This indispensable resource was published in 1999 and is the most authoritative
book about all things Irish-American. In this 1,000-page volume, there are
entries on all 50 states, music, the military and Irish relations with other
ethnic groups. If it’s not in here, it’s probably not Irish-American.
The Studs Lonigan Trilogy
By James T. Farrell
The greatest extended work of Irish-American fiction. Studs Lonigan,
The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan and Judgment Day have been hailed by
the likes of Pete Hamill and Norman Mailer for their unflinching depiction
of the 1930s Chicago Irish. They were no longer slum dwellers, but still
not quite respectable. You could say Farrell has little affection for his
subjects, often depicting them with disdain one might expect from an anti-Irish
nativist. Nevertheless, following the recent 100th anniversary of Farrell’s
birth, it was gratifying to see a renewed interest and respect for Farrell’s
masterpiece.
Angela’s Ashes
By Frank McCourt
After the years on the best-seller lists, the movie and the sequel, readers
might almost fear rereading Angela’s Ashes. They may look back and fear
it wasn’t quite as good as it seemed.
Fear not. McCourt’s journey from impoverished Limerick to New York City
retains all of its powers, as if the book’s narrator will forever be young,
hungry, angry and awed by the power of his mother’s love.
American Requiem: God, My Father and the War that Came Between Us.
By James Carroll
Clearly, 1996 was a good year for Irish-American books because joining
Andrea Barrett as a winner at the National Book Awards was James Carroll.
One hundred and twenty years after the famine, families were again rent
asunder, this time in the U.S., this time by the Vietnam War. That, as well
as changes within the Catholic Church, struck Irish-Americans in a particular
way, and Carroll chronicles how these profound forces ultimately drove him
and his father apart. A onetime priest who left the Church, Carroll — along
with the anti-war Berrigan brothers, who Carroll defended — reminds us in
this unflinching and honest book of the radical aspect of Irish Catholicism
in the U.S.
Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America
By Kerby Miller
Published in 1985, this groundbreaking history shed new light on the
immigrant experience by focusing on the written letters of the immigrants
themselves. In addition, Miller explored the impact of immigration not just
on one city or region but all of North America. A finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize, Miller’s book literally changed the way people thought about Irish
immigration and remains enlightening and informative.
A Drinking Life
By Pete Hamill
Contemporary Irish America’s greatest writer, Hamill seemed to outdo
even himself with this memoir, which is equally touching and unnerving.
With wonderful digressions into New York’s newspaper world, romances with
Jackie O. and Shirley MacLaine and Hamill’s Brooklyn youth as the child
of Belfast immigrants, this book’s heart is the evolution of an addiction
which nearly sapped this ambitious writer of his talents. Most recently,
those talents produced Forever, Hamill’s glorious time-travelling novel
from 2002, in which an Irish-American is granted the gift of eternal life,
witnessing everything from the American Revolution to 9/11.
Paddy’s Lament, Ireland 1846 -1847: Prelude to Hatred
By Thomas Gallagher
Gallagher’s look at the two worst years of the Famine retains its shock,
as he persuasively argues that political decisions, rather than natural
forces, created mass starvation in Ireland, which led to millions of deaths
and a diaspora that changed world history. The child of Irish immigrants,
Gallagher changed the way future authors approached the Famine as a subject.
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
By Mary McCarthy
When McCarthy’s memoir was published in 1957, anti-Catholicism remained
a significant problem in the U.S. A superficial reader might suggest that
this book provides fodder for bigots. But McCarthy’s book — which chronicles
a peaceful life until 1918, when McCarthy’s parents died and she was sent
to live with authoritarian relatives — poses tough questions about faith
in broad, and serious, terms. McCarthy’s extended family was a volatile
mix of Jews, Protestants, Irish Catholics and atheists. Her guardians were
devout as well as cruel, as illustrated in the famous scenes in which McCarthy’s
mouth was taped shut at night so that she wouldn’t make noise.
But McCarthy later cites time spent in a seminary, when she began reading
Latin, as central to developing her famously sharp mind. In the end, McCarthy’s
is a vivid, powerful memoir of religious and intellectual growth which confronts
harsh truths about aspects of the Irish Catholic experience in the U.S.
The Irish Voice in America
By Charles Fanning
Published in 1999 by the University of Kentucky, this is easily the most
thorough and important work about Irish writing in the U.S.
Fanning spans the centuries and adds insightful dashes of history and
criticism. It is not likely any other scholar will match the high standard
set by Fanning, who directs the Irish Studies program at Southern Illinois
University and has also published important works about James Farrell and
Finley Peter Dunne.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
By Betty Smith
This perennial childhood favourite of Irish tenement life, published
in 1943 and made into a famous Elia Kazan movie two years later, tells the
story of young Francie Nolan and her dad, a singing waiter whose trademark
tune is “Molly Malone.” This is fitting because both the singer and song
are haunted by death. Yet generations return to Francie because despite
all the adversity she can still find hope, literally out the window, in
the tree which provides this sentimental yet magical book its title.
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic
Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe
By Thomas Cahill
A phenomenon when it was published in 1995, Cahill’s book focuses on
a time when there was barely an Irish nation, much less an American one.
But the vast success of this book, about how Irish monks preserved classic
written works of the Western world, illustrated just how interested Irish
America had become in the history of their ancestral Ireland.
The Ginger Man
By J.P. Donleavy
Donleavy is an unusual case, an American-born writer who moved to Ireland,
where his parents were born. The Ginger Man — fittingly, a book about an
American in Ireland — is a gem of a book which often seems on the verge
of being forgotten. But in Sebastian Dangerfield, Donleavy turned the Irish-American
experience on its head, and created a character who is equal part the Beats
and Tristam Shandy. Best known for its bawdy sexuality which shocked many
1950s readers, The Ginger Man is also poignant, hilarious and utterly unforgettable.
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga.
By Doris Kearns Goodwin
Kennedy burnout is a natural reaction given America’s unending obsession
with this Irish-American royal family. But Goodwin’s massive bio is a proper
remedy, separating fact from fiction, myth from reality, to tell perhaps
the quintessential Irish-American story. An honourable mention for this
topic should also go to Thomas Maier’s excellent The Kennedys: America’s
Emerald Kings.
Ironweed
By William Kennedy
It is no longer adequate to compare William Kennedy to Faulkner or Joyce.
Yes, all of them focused their vast artistic energies on remote slices of
the map, in Kennedy’s case, Albany, New York. But Kennedy’s sustained brilliance
puts him in a league all his own. In his Albany cycle, which also includes
the rollicking Legs as well as Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, Ironweed (from
1983) is the most astonishing achievement, focusing on a determined yet
doomed turn-of-the-century drifter. Poetic and dreamlike, Kennedy vies with
O’Neill as Irish America’s great explorer of dashed hope, all the while
maintaining a hell of a sense of humour. That Kennedy could publish the
cycle’s second-best entry, the brilliant, uproarious Roscoe, just after
the turn of the 21st century, is a testament to his powers.
Ship Fever
By Andrea Barrett
This unjustly underread work, which won the National Book Award in 1996,
tells a series of stories about life in the 19th century. The harrowing
title story examines the spread of disease on a coffin ship headed from
Ireland to Quebec, a destination during the tragedy of the Irish famine
which is also often underappreciated. This is historical fiction of the
highest order: learned, detailed and illuminating.
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