A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory [Paperback]

Dennis Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

Growing up in the rough and tumble of New York City in the 1940s and 50s, Dennis Smith was dirt-poor, Irish Catholic and missing a father. Told in a first person narrative, this is a powerful odyssey of a young man coming of age in a confusing world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In an author's note, Smith, best known for Report from Engine Co. 82, states that this isn't a novel?although it reads like one. Smith grew up poor on Manhattan's East Side in the postwar years, in the Kips Bay neighborhood, where Italians were "guineas" and blacks "coloreds" and Sister Maureen's word was law. As the book opens, he is seven, living in a tenement with his mother, Mary, and his brother. They are on welfare. His mother moonlights as a charwoman while his father lies in a hospital, his legs useless after a mysterious accident. Smith is a gentle, religious boy who can be as obstinate as a terrier. Resentment and heartbreak surface when he learns that his father, whom he has never seen, isn't in the hospital after all but in a mental institution, and that this terrible secret?like that of being on welfare?must remain in the family. As he grows older, Smith starts smoking and drinking, drops out of high school, moves along to pot and then to heroin. A brush with the law lands him in the Air Force. After he leaves the service, he works as a cowboy in the West, but he is still drifting. He returns east, where his mother, toiling at the phone company, leads by example and he follows, into the FDNY, for which he puts out fires in a South Bronx teeming with poor people on welfare. Smith has come full circle and the irony is not lost on him. In this life-affirming reminiscence, the author thanks, through beautiful words, his mother for all her sacrifice, God for giving him a second chance and "a city that paid the rent and put an egg on the table for us when we needed it." BOMC alternate; Reader's Digest Condensed Book; Time Warner audio.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Smith came of age in a poor, fatherless Irish Catholic family living in the New York tenements of East 56th Street. Readers will have a hard time putting down this tribute to his mother, Mary. We travel with young Dennis from his first experiences in Catholic school, cleaning erasers and feeling the unjust whacks of disciplinary rulers, to the frightening escapades of the teenage dropout who takes up with bad company. On the verge of felony, Smith joins the Air Force and then works as a cowboy before returning to New York. Unlike Malachy McCourt (A Monk Swimming, LJ 4/1/98), Smith doesn't revel in his misdeeds but always hears his mother's voice in the back of his mind. He finds his way into a profession to which he can give his all, serving as a New York fireman; he is the author of nine other works, many of them about firefighting, including Report from Engine Co. 82 (LJ 2/1/72). Highly recommended.?Nancy Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, NC
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446675687
• ISBN-13: 978-0446675680
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #814,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poignant tale of a young Irish-American Boy ., June 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory (Hardcover)

This book by Dennis Smith is a fine prequel to his Engine Co. 82. In 82 we saw a young man dealing with the job he has chosen for himself, and a difficult job that was. In Song for Mary we see the boy who became that man. The only way a man could become a fireman is if he had great compassion for humanity. Mary, his mother, gave him this compassion. The "Song" of the title resonates throughout the book with the haunting refrain of The Rose of Tralee. I thought this memoir was as good, if not better, than those of Frank McCourt and others which have filled the bookshops recently. A MUST-READ for anyone who cherishes their Irish-American heritage or if they came of age in New York City,

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American "Angela's Ashes", May 10, 2001

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory (Paperback)

Dennis Smith's "A Song for Mary" is a powerful, emotionally gripping memoir that is one of the finest published in recent years. Along with Pete Hamill's "A Drinking Life", and Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes", it belongs in the first rank of great memoirs written by Irish-American authors. Speaking of Hamill, it is a Manhattan version of "A Drinking Life", replete with the chaos and woe associated with growing up poor and Irish in New York City. Smith's vivid prose conjurs up the Irish-American neighobrhood that was once the East Side of Midtown Manhattan. We see a young, bright Dennis Smith almost drawn into a life of petty crime, yet saved by love and devotion from his mother and local Catholic priests. Eventually the book ends positively, with his arrival as the rookie fireman at Engine Company 82, setting the stage for the events he described two decades ago in his bestselling memoir "Report from Engine Company 82". I am surprised that this fine book hasn't earned the wide audience it deserves. Anyone who has fallen in love with Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" should also fall in love with Dennis Smith's "A Song for Mary".

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end., May 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory (Hardcover)

To me, "A Song for Mary" very dramatically tells the story of how hard it was for many Irish and Italian families living in the East 50's of New York City during the 1950's. When you first meet Mary, on the 2nd page of the book, you immediately realize that her life and the way she raised her two sons, is worth reading about. She never had it easy, but she worked hard and had great comfort, finally, through her sons. I know, because she was my mother-in-law. I know too that Dennis, my husband's brother, has given an accurate protrayal of the neighborhood, and the way people talked, acted, and lived their lives, for we have received man letters of congratulations from neighborhood people. The Washington Post said that no one has ever writted a better book about mothers, and I am certain they were able to say that only because they believed in the book's honesty. The story is told in the voice of a seven year old, when Dennis was seven, and the voice changes in small degrees as Dennis gets older, through the tough, brutal language of a street teen to the reserved, introspective voice of the young adult. It is a book that stays interesting and exciting from beginning to end. I may be prejudiced, but I still know how to evaluate a book, and "A Song for Mary" is a good read.