Customer Reviews

Midlife Irish: Discovering My Family and Myself

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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

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.

This book is a pleasure. It was very funny, yet also inforrmative (and very well written). In parts it moved me emotionally. I was sorry when it was over, my highest compliment for a book. It has to be the funniest, and just plain best, book I've read this year.

I was surprised and delighted by this book. My wife, Briget, has Irish folks, so I picked it up. I thought it was going to be a sort of travel book. I was shocked when I started reading it, and I couldn't put it down. It has to be the funniest book I've read in years, but it is, in parts, very touching. All in all, a marvelous book, one anyone would love.

Most interesting book - and a pleasant surprise. The author's slant on growing up in an Irish family in America - and the 'baggage' that goes with it! Very enjoyable and readable.

Why has this author not written any other books? This book is a very good read, full of irish history and humor. This book had me r
iveted from the very first page. I must go to Ireland one day to see where my Mother and Grandmother were born ( in Co. Clare and Cork .)

I hope you write another book soon Francis

Many of us long to understand who we are, and where we come from. As a nation of immigrants, we struggle to appreciate the sacrifices made by those who made the journey to these shores, to understand what motivated them and what their life was like before they emigrated. I'm Irish, born and raised, but have lived in the U.S. for almost a decade so my perspective on this "journey" undertaken by the author in search of his parents roots is something I can easily relate to. I was initially disappointed with the earlier chapters in the book - they seemed to lack direction, were repetitious, and cried out for editorial direction but by the end of the book, I had realized that these are stylistic mannerisms of the author. The journey is less important than what the author learns along the way. Glimpses into Irish life are realistic, although tinged with sadness in places. Read this book, you won't be disappointed.

This book is mildly amusing but if any book called for a careful editor it's this one. It's got geography, history, culture all astonishlingly wrong. Irish as a Germanic language. Athlone 150 miles from Dublin. 1879 a Famine year. etc. etc.

That attitude is also, by the way, a healthy one to take to Ireland. While there, I was simultaneously reading Nuala O'Faolain's "Are You Somebody? -The Accidental Autobiography of a Dublin Woman", which may have been unfair to Gannon's book, since O'Faolain is a fantastic artist with the English language (as spoken by the silver-tongued Irish.) Gannon is nowhere near the writer that O'Faolain is, but his account is still touching in its simplicity and lack of pretension. Gannon is who he is, his parents were who they were, and his book is what it is. Accept that, and you'll have an enjoyable reading experience.