Epic in its scope but relentlessly compelling in its storytelling--not a
common combination--Broken Irish is a splendidly readable and richly
textured novel. Edward J. Delaney is an enormously gifted writer.
--Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange
Mountain and Perfume River
Truly indelible. . . . [Delaney] cares about details and understands
their importance to the larger themes of loss, desperation, and betrayed
loyalties. His characters are not merely vehicles for ideas, but rather
fully realized, familiar people, whose failures are heartbreakingly
authentic. --
Boston Globe
As the millennium approaches, Southie is still a place where little
distinguishes mob bosses from pillars of industry, the bullied from the
bullies, and the pious from the pitiful. In this tough Boston
neighborhood, six lives are about to converge: Jimmy, an alcoholic
writer, whose life is unalterably changed after witnessing an accident;
Jeanmarie, a teenage runaway, whose quest for independence leads down a
dark path; Christopher, a young Catholic school dropout with a gnawing
secret; Colleen, a war widow whose grief has blinded her to the needs of
her son; Father John, a priest on the eve of forced retirement; and
Rafferty, a wealthy businessman who hires a ghostwriter to tell his
story.
In Broken Irish, Delaney trains his journalist's ear, his filmmaker's
eye, and his writer's heart on each of their stories--creating a driven
and deeply human narrative that pierces the core of the American
experience. He also gives us a captivating portrait of South Boston in
the late-1990s--a time when Whitey Bulger has evaporated into the ether
but his boys still kick around on the street corners . . . waiting for
Whitey's Second Coming.
Edward J. Delaney is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and
author of four works of fiction, including Follow the Sun and Broken
Irish, both published by Turtle Point Press. He lives and teaches in
Rhode Island.
