Fiction Someone By Alice McDermott Someone captures the universal experience of life’s joys and tragedies in the story of Marie Commeford, a most unremarkable woman. The novel begins in Depression-era Brooklyn as Marie, a myopic 7-year-old sitting on the stoop waiting for her father, chats with a teenage neighbor, Pegeen. Despite Marie’s bottle-bottom glasses, she still … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Book Reviews
Review of Books
The Dream of the Celt By Mario Vargas Llosa, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” Each of his books is a portrait of one or more individuals who set their course against the … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Review of Books
By Irish America staff
February / March 2014
February / March 2014
Exchange Place by Ciaran Carson Ciaran Carson is a writer preoccupied with memory and perception. The author of five other prose collections and ten books of poetry, Exchange Place is Carson’s most recent meditation on these subjects, told through the conceit of a mystery surrounding the decade-old disappearance of a Belfast painter named, depending on who is … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Review of Books
By Sheila Langan
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Songs and Sonnets Paul Muldoon has eleven previous volumes of poetry and has won many prizes, including the Pulitzer and the T.S. Eliot. This year, he released two books of song lyrics, and though they may not win awards, that’s not the point. At a brisk 48 pages, Songs and Sonnets is more ear candy than brain candy. But amid the poems’ entertainment (and some truly … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Review of Books
By Sheila Langan, Deputy Editor
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Dark Lies the Island In Dark Lies the Island, Kevin Barry returns to the form that marked his literary debut (American readers who enjoyed his novel, City of Bohane, take note – his first short story collection, There Are Little Kingdoms, is also being released in the U.S. by Graywolf). Barry, born and raised in Limerick, has a singular voice and imagination. He is the rare … [Read more...] about Review of Books