Customer Reviews

Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under

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4 star:		(7)
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The tribal aspects of South Boston's Irish have been written about before, but rarely with such intimacy and honesty. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up in the Old Colony project during the seventies and eighties, part of a large family raised by a larger-than-life single mother. Even by project standards, his family had a horrible run of bad luck: his brother Davey, religious and distracted, commits suicide; sister Kathy ends up in coma after falling off a roof; brother Frankie gets killed pulling a bank robbery; and, shortly after, the call comes that brother Kevin has apparently hung himself in jail.

In his second memoir about coming of age in Southie, MacDonald confronts the carnage by asking himself why he was able to make it out of this mad world when so many others didn't. Interestingly, he gives a lot of credit to punk music. Listening to the Clash, the Slits, the Sex Pistols, and hanging out with other punks and punk musicians, allows him to try on an alternate identity. Being a smart kid, he starts to see that identities could be fluid and that geography wasn't necessarily destiny; if you told all the soul-crushers to just piss off, you might have a shot at reinventing yourself. But he discovers that the ties with his past aren't so easily cut. Pulling away comes with a price: in his case, a guilt that literally made him sick.

As part of his rebellion against his upbringing, MacDonald mostly stayed clear of drugs and drink, two major suck holes for Southie's children. In later life, he even becomes an anti-drug counselor in the neighborhood. He tries not to be judgmental toward those looking for a little relief from reality, reserving his anger for the dealers who prey on the neighborhood and the gangsters who control the dealers.

Michael has a different father than the other kids, though neither man lives with the family. Michael never sets eyes on his father, until the day of his wake, when he stares into his casket. His mother, Ma, is the book's most intriguing character. Ma seems both domineering and out of control, deeply caring and surpassingly callous, a person who doesn't fit smoothly into mainstream society but who loves life and loves to meet new people. MacDonald doesn't dig very deeply into her contradictions; she's a force he can't control, and he reacts to her with a mixture of wary respect, wry affection and occasional exasperation.

The last part of the book describes the trips MacDonald took to Ireland, partly to understand the origins of the life force and the follies that swirled around him in Irish South Boston. Ma accompanies him on one of these trips, and she fits like a jigsaw piece with the sociable, party-loving Irish of her homeland. Michael feels the emotional heat that's part of the Irish mystique, the same heat that kept him tied to his family and the place where he grew up, even as he was struggling mightily to pull free.

This book has a grace to it, which comes from MacDonald's willingness to tell the truth and his compassion for those who made it, those who might, and those who never will.

A breathtaking and rare read that I can only liken to sneaking out of your safe bedroom window for the first time to discover a world beyond curfews.
This is one dangerous and amazing night out. "Easter Rising" crackles with all of the energy and desperation of the punk music that Is it's soundtrack and leads you on a sweaty journey into adulthood that does the impossible, an unabated coming of age story that transcends time and place while at the same time reconciling the two.
Even when "the quiet MacDonald" feels like a ghost it is a blessing that he doesn't write like one.
This memoir is both brilliant, heartbreaking, electrifying and ultimately inspiring. You are better for having jumped out of that bedroom window with MacDonald.

I am always a little nervous to read a second book by an author whose first book I adored, but I shouldn't have been afraid to read the second book by the incredibly talented writer Michael Patrick MacDonald. He more than lives up to my high expectations with his lyrical, moving, funny EASTER RISING. This is a far more personal book than ALL SOULS, his first book, describing in vivid detail the brilliantly creative methods Mr. MacDonald used to cope, and ultimately survive, a series of unimaginable family tragedies. His life and his books are a testament to the human power of resiliency and capacity for hope. I have read that Mr. MacDonald has many other stories to tell and I, for one, cannot wait to read them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves memoirs, Boston, American (and Irish) history and plain old fashioned great writing.

What's an old guy,72,reading a book abot an bunch of young people growing up in Southie,South Boston,in the 70's and 80's;in an area wracked with drugs,violence and with little else of interest than rock music? I remember the days when School Busing as a form of Intregation was creating great upheaval in America and much of the news about difficulties seemed to come our of South Boston. I had never read much about Southie;so thought that it might be of interest as I have read much about the struggles of ethnic groups making their way in America.Most cities have had ,and still do,their areas where people ended up ,who lived outside the "mainstream",and had to do whatever it took ,just to survive...but survive they did!
I must admit,I found the book a little outside my interest in music , performers ,songs and band names;but it still held my interest and I found it better and better as I continued.By the time I finished,I felt it was one of the better books that I had ever read on the life,struggle and success of someone who overcame obstacles and an enviroment that to someone like myself would find totally discouraging. What a training ground,and anyone who managed to survive had to be remarkably strong. It shows that for anyone to survive and succeed,inner strengths,family ,determination,and taking on responsibility for oneself are the roads to success and not the reliance on government programs and social agencies.
When you see what the author did to make a success out of what he had to start with ;anyone else who finds themselves in similar enviroment should ask themselves; "So,What's my problem?
I found the author to be a great new,for me, addition to my list of favorite "Irish" writers and I have now put him in the company of my favorites; the McCourts,Roddy Doyle,Brendan Behan,Liam O'Flaherty,Toby Harnden,Brendan O'Carroll,Morgan Llywelyn,Pete Hamill,and many others.
Particularly,when the author arrives in Ireland,and he gets to meet the locals and observe the Irish culture;it seems that great gift of writing really blossoms.The way he can write about people,and especially how he can bring that wonderful mother to life in his writing shows,without any doubt, that he is a "gifted Irish Writer" .That seems to be a skill one has to be born with and it has been a fundamental ingredient of Irish culture sice the beginning;where communication was done by storytelling as opposed to writing.
How's this for observing and writing for which the Irish are so good at?

"And when she came back to the silence of Danny's grave,she carried on in a great mood about what a beautiful spot it was.Then she did what she'd told Buddy she would do,pulling the accordian onto one raised knee and breaking into "Danny Boy".
This opened every water faucet that had been closed so tightly that evening.Hannah,Mikey,and Catherine stood frozen,staring at the gravestone with hands folded,their tears falling in steady streams.I was terrified,the way I always was when Ma opened people's faucets.I wasn't sure if Ma was being appropriate,since I didn't know Danny's family at all well. Buddy had requested the playing,but I figured Ma ould do it when we were at he grave alone. Ma's red hair flew in all directions with the wind,exposing gray streaks at her temples,which I was seeing for the first time.She struggled to hold up the heavy accordian while standing,raising one thigh to prop it,and was soon balancing the whole spectacle on one foot. It was just past twilight,the sky was a deep dark blue,and the white stone of the religious statues shone out against the the backdrop of evening. Saint Patrick leading the snakes out of Ireland,the three children of Fatima kneeling in front of a serene Mary,Jesus' crucified body floating above us,his wooden cross invisible in the night.
Ma wailed the verses and settled down to a lullaby for the last line,
"I simply sleep in peace until you come to me."
We stood quietly for a few moments. I wasn't sure we'd be welcomed back at the Riordan's that night. Catherine broke the long,uncomfortable silence by soaking us all in a parting spray of holy water.Then she doused the grave.And we all went back to the cars in what seemed like a sudden descent of pitch darkness."
I can't wait to read more from this wonderful author.Keep it up Michael,you're really gifted.

This book is in my top 5 reads for 2006. I connected to it on a ton of levels - the way Michael Patrick MacDonald descibes falling in love with Punk Rock, his outsider tendecies, and his experiences in Ireland finding his roots. For anyone from Boston, anyone into Punk Rock, anyone who was "the weird kid" growing up, and any Irish American's out there, THIS IS THE PAGE TURNER FOR YOU!!!!!!!

Having grown up in Boston in the same music scene as Michael Patrick MacDonald and being of Irish heritage, I expected to identify with much of his book and i did. What I didn't expect to do was to recognize something amazing in my own mother that I had never really given her credit for: Toward the end of the book, while MacDonald is in Ireland with Ma (and is often embarrassed by what he perceives as her inappropriateness), she encounters a stranger whose son has died. Because her own losses have been so staggering (and because she is not embarrassed to try) she is able to console him. With a new understanding and appreciation of her, MacDonald writes: "You never know when you'll need to give whatever you've got to give."

That's an amazing thing to do really, to give whatever you have to give.

My friends from diverse ethnicities and geographies who have read "Easter Rising" have gotten a similar sense of compassion for the places and people that spawned them (and that they previously had wished to distance themselves from). Although it is definitely one man's difficult and inspiring journey, "Easter Rising"'s universal theme will speak to anyone who's ever felt like an outsider or refused to swallow without question what was fed to them. It is a great and brave and honest book.

In the past decade or so, the memoir genre has become a loathsome vehicle for self-exploitation, tawdry exhibitionism, and, worse, as an operator's manual for how to live one's life based on the feeble lessons learned by the author. Most memoirs are written to titillate, to access experiences that readers relate to much in the way a passerby witnesses a fatal car crash-- a morbid fascination with the scenario and relief that the mangled victim is not oneself. In this, the memoir connects fundamentally to larger social attitudes in the West: a yearning to visit suffering, to insulate its effects with subjective distance, and carry on while the world enacts crisis after crisis-- all the while enjoying reading about it, viewing it, and not living it. There is a sideshow quality to most memoirs in their sensationalism and masochistic excavation of the personal past. No wonder, considering most memoirists even regard themselves as freaks of nature and their life experience to be an aberration. So one gets the paradox of writing that is meant to garner sympathy while also showing off its own "genuine" distinctiveness. Were it not for Michael Patrick MacDonald's marvelous EASTER RISING, I'd be inclined to call for a ten year moratorium on the memoir(especially to make up for the last decade of banal, badly written recollections).
MacDonald neither sensationalizes nor trivializes the people he writes about (particularly himself) or his sociocultural context. Instead, he draws on memory to reconstruct several decades of his South Boston community and its legacy in his own life. Whereas ALL SOULS cast the author as an expert observer of his beleagured neighborhood, EASTER RISING illuminates his individual engagement with his fellow working-class Irish-Americans of Southie. This account is not a sequel per se, but a companion piece, and should be read in tandem with that earlier work. The critical eye and narrative technique are differently formatted and the funneling of history in each--the former expansive, the latter centrifugal-- is molded to advance contrasting levels of perception. What is common to each book is MacDonald's voice-- tender, never brazen, always questioning, never with generalizations. In the course of discussing the multiple tragedies of his own family and the neighborhood at large, highlighting his many tactics to find an identity alternately to escape home and reunite with it, MacDonald writes without melodrama. In addition to scrupulous attention to details he also plays dynamically with the broader implications of his life and findings in terms of race, class, culture, economics, and identity politics, personal and more widely social. This book should not be pigeonholed as Irish (American) lit, a mere coming of age story, or a punk rock memoir. All of these aspects are wonderfully alive in EASTER RISING but the narrative rises above any of the conditions it enumerates. Ultimately, it is an extraordinary saga of coming to terms with the world; its force of conscience and manifold viewpoints make it one of the best books of 2006.

A thorough, honest, compelling, amusing and haunting story of a sensitive soul living in a unique culture while it underwent a violent transformation. I felt like I was looking into this writer's windows and heart as I read this book. I'm so glad I read it.

I read Easter Rising immediately after re-reading All Souls. Easter Rising fills in some of the color that Michael couldn't put in the first book, or it would have been 700 pages long. It takes All Souls from a different persepctive. If that book was about how his family dealt with more trauma than any family should have to, Easter Rising is about the storyteller.
Michael Patrick MacDonald is a great writer.
I couldn't put either book down. Easter Rising ends, and leaves me wanting more.

Easter Rising, is the journey of a young boy who struggles to find an identity independent from cohort and culture in South Boston.
Michael Patrick MacDonald, searches to find a meaning to the word "normal", in a world where it is normal for strong Irish youths, to fight, do drugs and die before their time.
This book focuses on MacDonalds will to find meaning to his life while recovering from the tragic deaths of his older brothers.
Thankfully, MacDonald finds an outlet in the underground world of Bostons "Punk Rock" and "Reggae" scene and befriends the characters that thrive in it.
His exploration of music and himself becomes a vital part of his survival in a world that seems to be crumbling around him.
Michael MacDonalds descriptions of characters in this book are so very honest and likable that, by the time you are finished you feel like you are family (and if you have roots in Ireland, you probably are).


This book is for anybody that has ever lost somebody.
This book is for anybody who feels like they dont belong.
This book is for anybody who is trying to understand their child.
This book is for anybody who has ever felt lost.
This book is for anybody who is in search of meaning.
This book is for anybody that has quesioned their culture.
This book is for anybody that doesn't get the word "normal"
This book is for anybody that enjoys music.
This book is for anybody.

On a side note, I have never both laughed and cried while reading a book. Michael Patrick MacDonald has a way of bringing out feelings in you that you are not expecting to feel.