This intensely nostalgic debut novel from film-maker Edward Burns, best known for writing and directing The Brothers McMullen, begins with a well-attended wake in 1970s New York. At the service, “old Irish biddies dressed in black” pray over their rosary beads; afterwards, drinking buddies of the deceased, a labourer named Pop McSweeney, trade stories at the bar.
Then the narrator, Pop’s young grandson, introduces us to his Long Island home turf where many of the neighbours – O’Neils, Murphys, Dillons – have double-digit families. His dad loves to “play the ponies”; his mother suffers bouts of melancholy. He attends a Catholic school called St Joes run by sadistic nuns. If there’s a more Irish-American novel published this year, it’ll be something to behold.
