Eamonn Wall arrived in the United States in the 1980s as part of a wave of young, educated immigrants who became known as the "New Irish." In this book he comments on his own experiences and those of his generation, who identify as much with contemporary ethnic and immigrant America as they do with the long-settled Irish American community.
Wall’s starting point is the now-closed Sin-é Café in New York’s East Village, which was a hangout in the early 1990s for expatriate Irish musicians, actors, and writers. He comments on the poetry, fiction, essays, and memoirs of both the New Irish and Americans of Irish heritage, locating them within a literary and historical context. But this is also a deeply personal book in which Wall wrestles with his own identity as an Irishman living in America, raising his children as Americans and learning to love the American landscape, from the streets of Manhattan to the western hills of Nebraska.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A University Press book with Heart,
This review is from: From the Sin-E Cafe to Black Hills: Notes on the New Irish (Paperback)
University Press books are most often expensive, somewhat boring, and serve a relatively small audience. Not this one. From the Sin e is not only affordable, it's quite readable too. Wall's work is spare yet clear, and he informs us well, not overbearingly. The book is a bit of a conundrum - part remembrance, part criticism, part travelogue, part creative exposition, yet all of it quite interesting. Wall understands the psyche of the nascent "Irish-American" identity. It's made to be read in pieces, which some might consider a flaw, as there's no real cohesion to the parts.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Irishman on the American Road,
By
This review is from: From the Sin-E Cafe to Black Hills: Notes on the New Irish (Paperback)
University presses, presses period, unfortunately shy away from essay collections, which is what this volume essentially is. They claim such books do poorly on the market; if that's so then the contemporary American readership--at least those with an interest in the American-Irish interface--needs to wake up and smell the coffee at the Sin-e cafe. Every chapter here is, like they say, worth the price of admission. This is a book of poet's essays--Wall has published three extraordinary collections of poems--so if you are devoted exclusively to "unified," thesis-driven works, its wide-ranging, eclectic energy might be off-putting. The book is travel, research, investigation--think Herodotus, but with a drawling Wexford accent. From the Sin-e Cafe to the Black Hills is a work of calm intelligence, good humor, and acute literary cultural observation.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Irishman on the American Road,
By
This review is from: From the Sin-E Cafe to Black Hills: Notes on the New Irish (Paperback)
University presses, presses period, unfortunately shy away from essay collections, which is what this volume essentially is. They claim such books do poorly on the market; if that's so then the contemporary American readership--at least those with an interest in the American-Irish interface--needs to wake up and smell the coffee at the Sin-e cafe. Every chapter here is, like they say, worth the price of admission. This is a book of poet's essays--Wall has published three extraordinary collections of poems--so if you are devoted exclusively to "unified," thesis-driven works, its wide-ranging, eclectic energy might be off-putting. The book is travel, research, investigation--think Herodotus, but with a drawling Wexford accent. From the Sin-e Cafe to the Black Hills is a work of calm intelligence, good humor, and acute literary cultural observation.
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