About this item
A powerfully redemptive story of escape from the Irish American ghetto.Michael Patrick MacDonald's All Souls: A Family Story from Southie told the story of the loss of four of his siblings to the violence, poverty, and gangsterism of Boston's Irish American ghetto. The question "How did you get out?" has haunted MacDonald ever since. In response he has written this new book, a searingly honest story of reinvention that begins with young MacDonald's breakaway from the soul-crushing walls of Southie's Old Colony housing project and ends with two healing journeys to Ireland that are unlike anything in Irish American literature.The story begins with MacDonald's first urgent forays outside Southie, into Boston and eventually to New York's East Village, where he becomes part of the club scene swirling around Johnny Rotten, Mission of Burma, the Clash, and other groups. MacDonald's one-of-a-kind 1980s social history gives us a powerful glimpse of what punk music is for him: a lifesaving form of subversion and self-education. But family tragedies draw him home again, where trauma and guilt lead to an emotional collapse. In a harrowing yet hilarious scene of self-discovery, MacDonald meets his father for the first time -- much too late. After this spectacularly failed attempt to connect, MacDonald travels to Ireland, first as an alienated young man who has learned to hate shamrocks with a passion, and then on a second trip with his extraordinary "Ma," a roots journey laced with both rebellion and profound redemption.
About the Author
Michael Patrick MacDonald was born in Boston in 1966 and grew up in South Boston??s Old Colony housing project. He helped launch many of Boston??s anti violence initiatives, including gun-buyback programs and the South Boston Vigil Group which served to give voice to the survivors of violence and the drug trade in that neighborhood. He continues to work nationally with survivor families and young people in the anti-violence movement. His first book, All Souls won the American Book Award. He is also the recipient of a New England Literary Lights Award, and the Myers Center Outstanding Book Award administered by the Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America. His second book, the highly acclaimed memoir Easter Rising, was published in 2006. He has written guest columns for the Boston Globe and is currently writing the screenplay of All Souls for director Ron Shelton. Michael has been awarded an Anne Cox Chambers Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, a Bellagio Center Fellowship through the Rockefeller Foundation, and residencies at Blue Mountain Center and Djerassi Artist Residency Program. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and devotes all of his time to writing and public speaking on topics ranging from 'Race and Class in America' to 'Trauma, Healing, and Social Change. '
