The Larkin & Moran Brothers

18 Irish American News “WE’VE ALWAYS BEEN GREEN!” August 2016
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Immaculate Heart
by Camille De Angelis
St. Martin’s Press
This book is about the
supernatural or paranormal.
The author says that “there
could be a psychological
explanation for every paranormal
occurrence in this
story…”
Religious belief is personal,
intimate, and volatile. I
felt a responsibility to review
Immaculate Heart because
of the pervasive influence
of Catholicism in Ireland’s
history and culture.
On a personal note, of all the priests I
met in elementary school, high school, and
college, I only recall four who were not
Irish-Americans.
The author, Camille De Angelis, has written
several novels about the supernatural.
She is “a graduate of NYU and the National
University of Ireland, Galway.”
Immaculate Heart takes us into a world
that is rational, then it quickly becomes irrational,
and then book again. The author is
so adept at this changes that the reader soon
loses any sense of objective certainty. We are
rational people, who think in a
linear way, but this book takes
us into a non-linear world.
Twenty years after four teenagers
claim to have seen an apparition,
an American journalist
visits the west of Ireland village
where it happened.
Of the four teens (now adults),
one says it never happened. One
lives in Australia. One became a
nun and one is in a mental institution.
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De Angelis
says about apparition:
“I’ve
always mused
the suspicion
that…apparitions
are examples
of man’s
hysteria.”
The dictionary
says that
religion is an organized system of beliefs…
used to worship a god or a group of gods.
There are many motives
for religious belief. You
could say that humans need
religious belief. Some desires
of believers are:
-to feel that life has a
meaning
-to alleviate the fear of
death. If there is an afterlife,
then we live forever.
-hope to have some control
over nature, like praying
to a god or saint for rain.
-morality: kindness, charity,
compassion. Love for
others.
Immaculate Heart encourages us to evaluate
our beliefs.
Bishop’s Delight
by Patrick McGinley
New Island Books
Dufour Editions
The central character in Bishop’s Delight,
is the fictional prime minister of Ireland. Two
journalists compete to write a biography of
the former, three-term Taoiseach. However,
can the complexity of that vital and mercurial
man be captured in
a book?
One biographer says
about that: “He was half a
dozen men in one…man
of action v. scholar—bibliophile;
social charmer v.
solitary—contemplative
artist v. politician…”
Patrick McGinley has
written ten novels. When
I was a young man I
read one, and found it
enchanting, with imaginative
characterization
and a humane view of
life. That applies also to the Bishop’s Delight.
While reading this book, I repeatedly
thought of playwright, Conor McPherson’s
comment: “If you write good plays, you
ask more questions than provide answers.”
McGinley is an intensely private person
and never gives interviews. All I could find
out about him is that he was born in 1937 in
Glencolumkille, Donegal. He taught school
for a few years before moving to England.
Bishop’s Delight contains many observations
about politics, politicians, and
especially about the journalists who write
about them.
The Prime Minister says: “The age of
decorum is dead. Modern journalists are
happiest dishing the dirt…It’s their high
moral tone that gets me.”
Who do these journalists write for? He
observes: “the Irish are more superstitious
than religious…They love the rogue…the
cute hoor and the conman who thrives at
the expense of the highly respectable and
those who looked down on their neighbors.”
There are many brilliant observations
in Bishop’s Delight that could be quoted.
These are a few:
-Charles de Gaulle was the PM’s hero: “if
de Valera had half of de Gaulle’s gifts as a
politician and statesman there would have
been no civil war and Partition of Ireland.”
-“Ireland has changed. The civilized reticence
of Dev’s time is ancient history…We
have a new generation of writers whose fathers
never handled a shovel. They’re all the
offspring of accountants and businessmen,
and write like accountants and businessmen.
Dev was lucky, living as he did in the age of
Frank O’Connor and Sean O’Faolain. Those
men had their heads in the clouds, as literary
men should.”
-Interviewing a person for the biography:
“He used to say that he should have been
born into the nomadic life, sleeping under
the stars…He admired the great adventurers.
His heroes were Marco Polo, Shackleton
and Scott. He liked to think that he had
more in common with these men than with
any politician…Small wonder that the Irish
people didn’t understand him.”
-Watching the sunset with a friend of the
biographer; “I’ve wasted my life on futile
dreams.” “No dream is futile. Our dreams
keep us going…That sunset sums it up. Not
quite perfect, but still unlike any sunset I’ve
ever seen.”
Wedding Bel Blues
By: Maggie McConnon
St. Martin’s Paperbacks, Amazon
Wedding Bel Blues is the first in a new
series of mystery books that feature Belfast
McGrath. I enjoyed this mystery and felt that
Bel, as she is called by friends and family,
will become a regular in the field of crime
investigation.
She is 37 years old, has red curly hair, is
below average in height, is observant, smart
and chubby. Hers is a large Irish-American
family that loves Irish music and dance.
Bel’s parents own a large, historic manor
that overlooks the Hudson River. It is located
in the fictional town of Foster’s Landing. It is
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