BLURB

REVIEW

Alice lives alone, her only family are her nephews and their interfering wives. She never married and never had any children...apart from one. When she was 7 years old and making her first communion, she gave the nuns a half crown to adopt an african baby. Thinking that this baby would soon be posted onto her in Dublin, she is surprised when about 60 years later a black lady arrives at her door collecting for the missions. Immediately Alice decides that this must be her daughter Dinah from Africa, who has finally after all these years found her way home.

Its a lovely story with a bit of a bizarre ending. This author has also picked up Charlotte Bronte's incomplete novel "Emma" and finished this, would be very interested to follow up on this author.

Charming Billy is a novel about family life in the Irish-American neighborhood in Long Island NY. The title character is, indeed, charming but to say more would give away the very unexpected plot twists.

Parts of this book were wonderful but other parts were confusing with jumbled timelines and too many characters to keep track of.

Why did McDermott write this book from the perspective of the daughter of one of the main characters? It takes a while to figure out who is speaking and when you do know who it is, you never find out WHO SHE IS. You never get to know her at all. She barely speaks to the other characters, rarely interacting even in the group scenes. Her distance from the story creates distance for the reader. Without some connection to her as the voice of the story, it's hard to care about what she's telling you. And - most awkwardly, at times she seems to be directing the story to her husband.

The beginning of the book describing Billy and Dennis' meeting with Eva and Mary, Billy falling in love with Eva, Dennis helping get the money to send to Eva in Ireland, Eva "dying," was spellbinding.

Trying to find the cause of Billy's alcholism was futile. He was an alcoholic before he met Eva, an alcoholic when he thought Eva was dead, an alcoholic when he found she wasn't.

TEACHER MAN is Frank McCourt's third memoir, and is about his life as a teacher and how it lead to him becoming a writer.

Much shorter than both ANGELA'S ASHES and 'TIS, and far less emotional, but still a good read. Interesting insight into his teaching methods and how he taught his students (and himself) to write creatively.

Recommended only if previously read McCourt's previous two memoirs, as references are made to the life he detailed in ANGELA'S ASHES & 'TIS, and without the background information the book as a whole would make little sense.

Warning: Dont expect it to be as good as either ANGELA'S ASHES or 'TIS because it's not, but it's an interesting final chapter to the Life McCourt.

After falling in love with his Circus Animals' Desertion, I want to check out some of his other poems.

Brendan Behan, the dramatist, poet, novelist and member of the Irish Republican Army, shares his experiences as a youth who was sentenced to a Borstal (reform school). The IRA occasionally used youths to carry out some of their plans, and Behan was caught after being in possession of explosives that were to be used for the IRA S-bombing campaign. He is first sent to a prison where he awaits his sentence, and he meets a London youth named Charlie who will eventually be his "china" (closest pal) throughout his incarceration. Through his tales of his imprisonment, we learn a great deal about the boy that Behan was, and honestly other than a couple of fights, his experience isn't particualrly harrowing. What we do see is that Behan had an amazing ability to adapt and to dominate any room he was in. It's clear that even as a youth, he had a talent for writing (he won an essay contest at the Borstal and never had a doubt but that he would) and his appetite for books is insatiable. The book is a straightforward, thoroughly readable piece of work.