NON-FICTION The Irish cop is no stereotype. As authors Thomas Reppetto and James Lardner show, in their informative new history NYPD: A City and Its Police, the Irish have played an integral role on New York City's police force since its creation in 1844. By the mid- 1880s, the authors write, one survey "found that out of approximately three thousand police officers of … [Read more...] about Book Reviews: The Latest Irish Books
Memoir
Leaves of Pain
How too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. At first, it seemed to be nothing. It was a curled-up dark brown leaf about the size of a good lock of hair and it was preserved in glass in a room in the Fairlow Herbarium in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A typewritten card alongside the leaf said that it was taken from an infected potato plant in Ireland during the … [Read more...] about Leaves of Pain
Memoir of an Irish Childhood
By Pete Hamill
September October 1996
Author and raconteur Frank McCourt, in his autobiography, has "examined his ferocious childhood, walked around it, relived it, and with skill and care and generosity of heart, transformed it into a triumphant work of art," writes Pete Hamill. Frank McCourt has written a triumphant book. His memoir of an Irish childhood is in turns hilarious, heart-scalding, bitterly angry. … [Read more...] about Memoir of an Irish Childhood