Moira's Crossing: A Novel [Hardcover]

Christina Shea (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 2000

An exquisitely wrought debut novel about sisterhood through three generations in Ireland and America.

It is 1921 in Ireland. When their mother dies in childbirth, Moira and Julia O'Leary are left to rear their infant sister, Ann, while their father, a sheep farmer, despairs. After Ann dies, Moira and Julia depart Cork for Boston, but the painful secret behind Ann's death haunts their new lives and presages the confusion that will come to trouble the next generation.

Moira and Julia have always been strikingly different, but theirs is a mercilessly dependable relationship-Moira's boldness is fortified by Julia's quiet inner purpose, while Julia lives vicariously through her sister's impulsive actions. Moira's Crossing charts their shared journey through marriage, children, and lobstering off the coast of Maine. At once an examination of the troubled intimacy of sisterhood and an inquiry into the meaning of faith, Moira's Crossing is also a story of what we leave behind and who we become because of it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A fluid, meditative family saga, Shea's debut traces the lives of two sisters from their childhood in 1920s rural Ireland through middle-age in New England. Moira and Julia O'Leary's mother died giving birth to their sister, Ann, leaving the girls to raise the infant with little help from their hard-drinking, grieving sheep farmer father. Temperamentally, the two older sisters have little in common. Moira is hardy, confident and headstrong; she angrily abandons religion when her mother dies, and has little patience for conventional society. Julia, the caretaker of the family, is pious, delicate and proper. These differences, which Shea renders somewhat simplistically, cause lifelong friction between the siblings, first coming to a head in their teens when the ailing Ann dies as a result of Moira's willful negligence. Reeling from the loss, their father sends the girls to Boston, where they work as domestic servants until Moira marries Michael Sheehan, a fellow Irish immigrant, and the couple settle in Maine to run a lobster boat. Julia soon moves into their home and helps raise their two daughters, Kate and Helen, remaining unmarried, nursing a secret crush on Michael and writing for a local paper. Throughout her life, Moira's atheism periodically wavers in the face of Julia's unflagging, devout Catholicism. Moira's contemplations of God tend to sound facile and forced, rare moments of heavyhandedness in Shea's otherwise sinuous prose. Indeed, for all her stylistic polish, Shea's characterizations of the sisters and supporting cast is rather thinly developed. Drawn in broad strokes, the sisters and their families are plausible characters typifying the Irish immigrant experience, but they lack the idiosyncrasies and animated intelligence that would make them truly memorable. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Shea's sluggish first novel won't make it onto the growing list of good books about the Irish immigrant experience. The book begins in 1921 when 12-year-old Moira, the protagonist, has just lost her mother to fatal childbirth and is beginning to lose her father to alcohol--leaving Moira and her younger sister Julia to care for the new baby, Ann. When Ann dies seven years later, Moira's father sends the two girls to Boston for a better life. Moira soon marries and moves to Maine with her fisherman husband, Michael, which upsets Julia because she is secretly in love with her brother-in-law. When Michael dies, Julia moves to Maine to live with her sister, becomes a columnist for the local newspaper, and falls in love with the editor. All of this might have made an interesting novel, but because Shea relates these gripping events monotonously, even the most dramatic parts of the novel fall flat. It's hard enough to differentiate among the characters, let alone care about them. Not recommended.
-Nancy Linn Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (January 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312203470
• ISBN-13: 978-0312203474
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,984,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christina Shea was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. The fourth of eight children, Shea escaped the crowded dormitory of her Irish Catholic family by means of her imagination and found that she could go most anywhere while sitting quietly in a chair. She studied Art and English at Kenyon College and received her MFA from University of Michigan. Shea co-authored the first Frommer's guidebooks to Hungary. Her first book, MOIRA'S CROSSING, was a Barnes & Noble Discover selection. Her new novel, SMUGGLED, will be available in July, 2011. She lives with her family in Boston.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moira's Crossing Review, March 18, 2000

By 

Delpha M. (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moira's Crossing: A Novel (Hardcover)

Moira's Crossing is a fine first novel told from the perspective of two sisters who emigrate from Ireland to the U.S. in the late 1920s. It details their hardships and tragedy in Ireland and their making a new home in New England, finding husbands, living through W.W.II, and finally making peace with their past. The book is one that emphasizes domesticity among hardships, religious faith intertwined with doubt, family togetherness along with family disputes, happiness and sorrow, and pride and shame. In short, it captures the multi-faceted life Irish immigrants found in the New World in the 20th Century. An excellent read!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put It Down, March 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Moira's Crossing: A Novel (Hardcover)

With haunting and luminous prose, as well as carefully chosen situtations and cultural details, Shea captures the essence of "Irish silence" that haunts two sisters over their lifetimes. She has a magnificant ear for prose rhythm, dialogue and accent, and relationships. The plot is utterly fascinating.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moira's crossing, March 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Moira's Crossing: A Novel (Hardcover)

If good storytelling is what you look for in fiction, this one's for you. You will care about Moira, her sister, their father, while witnessing Irish American history during the worn torn 40's through the 70s. This would be an excellent Oprah pick.