Fiction A few years back, Irish novelist Joseph O’Connor wrote Star of the Sea, an ambitious, multi-layered novel set mainly during the voyage of an Irish famine coffin ship. The book was a best-seller, despite the fact that it was a demanding read. Using flashbacks, jumbled chronology and other trickery, O’Connor took readers all over the British Isles, and his narrative … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Literature
P.J. O’Rourke
“The funniest writer in America” talks to Chuck Leddy about some serious issues. P.J. O’Rourke, one of America’s most popular political satirists, has built his career skewering the absurdities and hypocrisies of political life. Time magazine has called him “the funniest writer in America,” and he’s the bestselling author of a dozen books that blend his laugh-out-loud humor … [Read more...] about P.J. O’Rourke
Review of Books
The earlier decades of the 20th century provide the settings for two new works of Irish-American fiction.Dream When You’re Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg explores life on the homefront during World War II, as seen through the eyes of the three Irish-American Heaney sisters from Chicago.Kitty, Louise, and Tish each have differing conflicts, and Berg masterfully divides time … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Okie Faces & Irish Eyes: John Steinbeck & Route 66
The ad man knew what he was doing. Hired to write copy about a road that didn’t yet exist, he had an idea: create something out of whole cloth. He had as his subject an about-to-be-named Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway, the ramshackle one that would be quilted together from dozens of variously named and sometimes unconnected roads. He would dress that baby up. He’d call it … [Read more...] about Okie Faces & Irish Eyes: John Steinbeck & Route 66
Review of Books
Fiction In books such as The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto, Patrick McCabe has displayed a great interest in the macabre. McCabe’s latest, Winterwood, could be his darkest work yet, with a strong dose of Stephen King tossed into McCabe’s reliably strange brew. Once happily married, Redmond Hatch can only stand by as his family crumbles before his eyes. So distraught is … [Read more...] about Review of Books