All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
by Michael Macdonald
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael MacdonaldEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11-01
ISBN: 0807072133
Number of pages: 296
Publisher: Beacon Press
Book Reviews of All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
Book Review: A Great Read
Summary: 5 Stars
First off, I'm no relation to Packie (unless he's one of Uncle Arthur's people), that being said I approached this book with some eye rolling trepidation, looking the book over I got a bad feeling, my first impression was, "Oh no, another souper like Dennis Clark selling out the Irish." Page after page seemed to confirm this initial bias, for example the open faced honesty in which the author reflected on his childhood was problematical for me. On one hand he is brutally honest, on the other hand the honesty is expressed without any apparent context; Irish Bad seemed to be the gist of it. Continuing on it becomes clear it was the nature of the writing (intense near stream of consciousness style memoir) rather than a deficit of artistic ability as context was later supplied for the collapse of this community. South Boston was under attack by both an Irish gangster enabled by the FBI and the Beacon Hill gangsters who tried to use busing to drive the Irish out of Southie so they could develop it. The poor Irish were hard pressed to survive, many in MacDonald's family didn't being either killed or wounded in the resulting cultural upheaval. This book is so good that upon finishing it I went out and bought the sequel, Easter Rising, another fantastic book, much the same story (and more) but fleshed out more by a more mature writer (it was written six years after the first). I hope as MacDonald develops and his vision improves, he returns to Southie and continues to tell their story. As an aside, another good book about South Boston (written by a more mature writer it is probably a more accurate history of this area) is That Old Gang of Mine by Loftus. See also, Slaughter of the Cities by, E. Michael Jones for a history of how the monied interests destroyed ethnic neighborhoods for their political and monetary gain; leaving death and destruction in their wake. After reading this book I went back and re-read the Boston part of the book, who was cited there?
No other than Michael Patrick MacDonald!
Truth Against the World Michael!
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