Irish America

Books

An Interview with T. J English

Tom Deignan
IA Newsletter October 22, 2022

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Having spent decades writing about crooks and killers, what seedy corner of America’s immigrant underworld could best-selling author TJ English explore next? Jazz, of course! OK, this might seem like a strange fit. In books like The Westies and Where the Bodies are Buried, English took a close look at ruthless Irish American gangsters from Hell’s Kitchen to South Boston. Then … [Read more...] about An Interview with T. J English

Summer Reading

By Darina Molloy

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Snowflake By Louise Nealon There’s been a huge buzz about Louise Nealon ever since word of her debut novel was announced, with many reviewers and critics calling her the next Sally Rooney. Maybe they should all leave the Mayo writer to be the current and next Sally Rooney, however, and come up with different descriptors for almost every other Irish female writer under 30. … [Read more...] about Summer Reading

Spending Time With Alice

By Tom Deignan

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Tom Deignan first interviewed Alice McDermott as a young journalist. He looks back now on her literary career over the past 20 years and talks to her about her new non-fiction book What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction.   For four decades now, Alice McDermott has dazzled the literary world in a fashion nearly as subtle and cunning as her fiction. We … [Read more...] about Spending Time With Alice

The 10th Annual Tom Quinlan Poetry Lecture Featuring Paul Muldoon

IA Newsletter November 13, 2021

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Poet Paul Muldoon is even busier than usual. Earlier this month he was in London to help launch Paul McCartney’s memoir, “The Lyrics”… an instant bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Muldoon interviewed The Beatle for five years then edited the beautiful two volume boxed set. Muldoon, a Pulitzer prize-winning poet and Princeton professor once again organized the Princeton … [Read more...] about The 10th Annual Tom Quinlan Poetry Lecture Featuring Paul Muldoon

A Night to Remember


By Frank McCourt

January 2000

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Frank McCourt's second book, 'Tis, follows, where Angela's Ashes leaves off with the young Limerick man making his way in New York. In the following excerpt, Frank's pal Paddy McGovern takes him to an Irish dance hall. Paddy Arthur McGovern warns me that if I keep on listening to that noisy jazz music I'll wind up like the Lennon brothers so American I'll forget I’m Irish … [Read more...] about A Night to Remember