Midlife Irish: Discovering My Family and Myself [Hardcover]

Frank Gannon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

For Frank Gannon, being Irish-American has nothing to do with Lucky Charms, Irish Spring, leprechauns, and "the wretched thing that has been made of St. Patrick's Day." It means returning to the land where his deceased parents were born in search of his own Irish identity. Soon, he will discover much about his mother and father, and even more about himself. MIDLIFE IRISH draws on the universal themes of love, loss, and laughter that have kept the Irish both miserable and happy-often at the same time -throughout the years.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Comic essayist Gannon, a first-generation American, serves up a tangy, tasty Irish stew that mixes memories with mythology and facts with fables. Examining Ireland from an American perspective, Gannon begins with a study of stereotypes ("In the winter, it's still green.... Everyone in Ireland is continually looking for some excuse to drink.... Even though everyone in Ireland can dance, they cannot dance and move their upper body at the same time"). Admitting "the real Ireland, I couldn't tell you," Gannon reflects on Irish aspects of his childhood and his father's New Jersey bar, Gannon's Irish American Refreshment Parlor. Those remembrances, an Irish history lesson and speculations on his parents' past serve as a warmup to an engaging travelogue of the trip to Ireland Gannon made with his wife, who told him, "Years and years of New Jersey have built up around you, like rust. Now it has to be scraped away." There's a lighthearted lilt as he compares places and people to American life and has amusing close encounters with the locals (one tells him, "we can take anything, put a fooking shamrock on it, and you'll buy it"). Intertwining personal observations, insights, free associations, cinematic references and humor, Gannon takes readers on a captivating cultural journey of the identity crisis less traveled. Going from routes to roots, the inventive humorist has written a charming memoir certain to entertain both Irish-American readers and an even wider audience. Map, illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

'Gannon takes readers on a captivating cultural journey... a tasty Irish stew!' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ' A winning and charming book, one that took me for an easy chair tour through the old sod.' Dennis Smith author of A SONG FOR MARY --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446526789
• ISBN-13: 978-0446526784
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,953,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique book, March 1, 2003

By 

John Saye (Auburn, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midlife Irish: Discovering My Family and Myself (Hardcover)

I highly recommend this book. Midlife Irish defies easy characterization. It is not a typical travel book; nor is it a book about midlife crisis. Midlife Irish is about dreams. Frank Gannon has had visions of Ireland since childhood, and in midlife he finally has the chance to chase those dreams to ground in the homeland of his parents. With a mixture of wry wit and touching candor, Gannon takes us along on his journey in search of Ireland, of his parents, and of why his childhood was as it was. In the end, Gannon's journey is a meditation on the mystery of life and place and time, and on the way that place and time shape not one life, but the lives of the generations that follow.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars surprisingly touching and funny., April 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Midlife Irish: Discovering My Family and Myself (Hardcover)

I recieved this book as a present. I thought of it as a sort of travel book, but it's something much different. It's a very funny, personal and touching book. It's not a "fact book", and I don't think it pretends to be. But it is very memorable, very funny , and very entertaining. Just a lovely read. At the end I was genuinely moved

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In 1990,there were 70 million Irish living outside Ireland., March 20, 2005

By 

J. Guild (Toronto,Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Midlife Irish: Discovering My Family and Myself (Hardcover)

I had never seen nor heard of this book or its author when I picked it up.I must admit, it didn't do much for me,particularly in the first quarter of the book.Like another reviewer, it also hit me as disjointed and in need of a lot of editing.As a matter of fact, I nearly gave up on it.That would have been a big mistake.After finishing it,I still feel the book gets a lot better,from every respect,the further you get into it.
I have been to Ireland three times and find it an absolutely fascinating country.The people,history,landscape,music,literature
and all, fail to amaze me.
Gannon is impressed with the Irish skill in the use of language as I am and he is a writer,and he should know.What the Irish can do with language does not come from a book,can't be taught in school;it comes from the soul--and as far as I can tell-it has to come from an Irish soul.
I was really taken by Gannon's concept of "thin places".He mentions several and made me think of some too: Sitting on the base of Molly Malone's statute talking to a couple of street people,Kennys Bookstore in Galway,A stroll up Fall's Road in Belfast,B&B at Trinity College,Blarney Castle,Grafton Street,Gogarty's in Temple Bar,Shop Street in Galway,Sitting in the Lord Mayor,s chair in Belfast,Joseph Plunkett's cell and the Chapel where he married Grace Gifford before being executed in Kilmainham Gaol in 1916,just to name few.
You'll surely enjoy this book if you've ever been to or plan to visit Ireland.