Synopsis
The story of an Irish family in America. "This lyric and haunting novel about three generations of Irish immigrants deserves a visible place in the multi-ethnic tradition of American literature. Through the working-class consciousness of its female narrator, it celebrates the democratic ideals of the early O'Sullivans who find themselves among Yankee, Polish, and lace-curtain' Irish neighbors in a mill town in western Massachusetts. The text's classic storytelling, mythic framework, and memorable minor characters make this a most teachable' novel."--Margo Culley, Professor of English. University of Massachusetts, Amherst "By using their own words and the perspective of a young girl narrator, Mary Doyle Curran not only recreates three generations of an Irish immigrant family but poignantly evokes their faith in the American dream, their bewilderment as they see their hopes fade, and the dignity with which they accept their roles as outsiders.'--Mary Anne Ferguson, Professor Emeriti), University of Massachusetts, Boston "Mary Curran was my teacher at Wellesley in the late forties, the only teacher I had at college who asked new questions. She first published The Parish and the Hill in those years, telling the truth about Irish-Americans as she taught us to seek the truth in other less conventional, uncanonized literature. I celebrate the republication of her moving novel and its story of class, bondage, and the courage of women in the early days of Irish immigration to the United States, and in the hard years that followed. This is a fine novel from those dark, postwar years by a memorable woman who illuminated those years for me and many others.--Carolyn C. Heilbrun, Avalon Foundation Professor in the humanities. Columbia University
