Birthday Book Recs 3/50 : All Souls: A Family Story From Southie by Michael Patrick MacDonald
Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
Birthday Book Recs: 3/50
All Souls: A Family Story From Southie by Michael Patrick MacDonald
I bought this book from the Waterstone’s that used to exist in Boston’s Faneuil Hall soon after it was released in 1999. Memoir is tricky: Ones that are just like “and then this happened” bore me. What MacDonald does here — besides sharing the ins and outs of his family’s life in Southie’s Old Colony projects as well as the tragedies that befall his siblings — is demonstrate how violence is, sadly, a thread that links different types of communities even when other people or the media are like “no, no we’re not like THAT.” Whitey Bulger is the specter that hovers over the book, and MacDonald is (rightly) unsparing in his description of his role in destroying a community. I read this one every few years.
(All Souls is grouped with other Irish books I own [except for I don’t know how The Other Wes Moore got in there?!] because MacDonald’s second book, Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up From Under, chronicles his time exploring his family roots in Ireland. To me, he’s an Irish author. PS: People have asked how I’m organizing books on all these shelves. Answer: There really is no organization except for the rows of Irish-themed books and a handful of authors where I’m grouping their work together. Living in Ireland had an outsize impact on how I think about literature — and it’s also where I got my start with literary programming because of the Dublin Book Festival — so I figure a little altar of sorts is allowed!)
You can find all my 50th Birthday Book Recommendations HERE.
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