Review by Booklist Review
Kelly uses a well-known chapter in Irish American history as a springboard for a vividly lavish historical novel. The mid-nineteenth-century potato famine in Ireland resulted in approximately one million deaths and one million emigrations. After leaving a desperate and depleted Ireland, Michael and Honora Kelly make their way to America. Eventually settling in Chicago, the Kellys and their children struggle to survive and thrive in the Promised Land. This multigenerational family saga mirrors the experiences of countless other immigrants who transformed both their own lives and the face of America. Kelly does an admirable job of conveying both the despair and the determination that gripped a generation of Irish immigrants. Through the eyes of the extended Kelly clan, the reader is treated to a panoramic overview of the Irish American experience.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this scattered retelling of her own family's struggles during the Great Irish Starvation, Kelly captures the suffering but neglects the inner lives of her thinly drawn characters. In Bearna, Ireland, in 1839, Honora Keeley falls in love with Michael Kelly after finding him swimming in Galway Bay, and they soon marry despite her father's objections. For a short time, life, while far from perfect, is sweet. Then comes the blight, destroying most of their potato crop. After losing the harvest for the third time in four years, the Kellys flee to America and settle in Chicago. Though the research is meticulous and the famine horrors are catalogued in great detail, the Kellys' lives in America are presented haphazardly, making it difficult to keep track of the huge cast of characters when decades are skipped seemingly at random. The characters themselves function more as types-greedy landlords, arrogant Englishmen-to further the plot. Despite its flaws, the novel may appeal to fans of Frank McCourt and Irish history, as the trials of the Kelly family echo the struggle of the Irish to assimilate while retaining their own heritage. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In 1839, Honora Keeley, days away from entering a convent, meets the love of her life on the bank of a river in Connemara. Blissfully unaware that the famine is rapidly approaching, Honora and Michael marry and begin their family amid the poverty of the Irish countryside. Basing this sweeping Irish family saga upon the experiences of her own family, documentary producer and journalist Kelly (Special Intentions) follows Honora and her family from Galway to Chicago, escaping starvation in search of Michael's brother Patrick. Reminiscent of Frank Delaney's Ireland, this novel focuses on the resilience and determination of the two million people who fled a callous government with nothing but hope from the perspective of Honora, her sister Maire, and their children. This readable and highly personal novel of the Irish experience is an excellent addition to the already rich collection of Irish historical fiction. Highly recommended.-Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Historically accurate epic of the Irish potato famine veers into gothic romance territory but keeps its eye on the Fenian prize. Honora Keeley is swollen with pride, if nervous, to have been accepted to "the first convent allowed to open in Galway City since Cromwell." She's a sweet 17-year-old, not quite innocent enough not to know what's happening when she first lays eyes on Michael Kellyor rather, "the maleness of himgrowing before my very eyes." But Galway is no place for tender young lovers, especially not Catholic ones, when times are so hard and the Protestant masters of Ireland so cruelly bent. As long as we have "pratties" (potatoes), our heroes reason, nothing can happen to us. But then the pratties take ill, and after resisting the bad-guy landlords to no avail the young wild geese of Galway Bay take flight. They wind up in Chicago, there to become the tribe of the lace curtains. Kelly (Special Intentions, 1998, etc.) writes with deep but lightly worn understanding of Irish history and its complex strains: Celtic, Norman, Saxon, Catholic and, yes, Protestant. She evinces and elicits sympathy for people caught up in forces well beyond their control, and for those who aim to take control and change bad situations, such as the transplanted rebels who have it in mind to travel up to Canada to whip up an insurrection against the British. The pace is a bit too leisurely, each scene lasting a few beats too long, but Kelly delivers a story whose end grows from its beginning, and whose middle has plenty to keep readers occupied. A satisfying tale, with few surprises for those who know the territory, but no false steps. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
