Product Description
Word count: 3841. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Letras Libres, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2004. The length of the article is 4377 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: La conjura de los palurdos: ¿cómo vivieron la Convención Republicana los residentes neoyorquinos, cuya mayoría es demócrata? Pete Hamill, periodista emblemático de esa ciudad, hace la crónica de esos días de efervescencia preelectoral.
Author: Pete Hamill
Publication: Letras Libres (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 6Issue: 70Page: 18(5)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
An unparalleled example of American naturalism, the Studs Lonigan trilogy follows the hopes and dissipations of its remarkable main character—a would-be "tough guy" and archetypal adolescent, born to Irish-American parents on Chicago’s South Side—through the turbulent years of World War I, the Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression. The three novels—Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, and Judgment Day—offer a vivid sense of the textures of real life: of the institutions of Catholicism, the poolroom and the dance marathon, romance and marriage, gangsterism and ethnic rivalry, and the slang of the street corner. Cited as an inspiration by writers as diverse as Kurt Vonnegut and Frank McCourt, Studs Lonigan stands as a masterpiece of social realism in the ranks of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A Tale of Chicago Streets
James T. Farrell's "Studs Lonigan" (1935) is a trilogy which tells the story of the short, unhappy, and brutal life of its title character on the streets of Chicago from 1914 to Lonigan's death at the age of 30 in 1930.The trilogy consists of three separate novels.The first and shortest part of the trilogy, "Young Lonigan" begins with Lonigan's graduation from a Catholic school in the eighth grade.The novel describes the young man's first sexual experience, his decision to drop out of high school, and the beginning of his life as a tough on the streets.The second novel, "The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan" continues the story of Lonigan's deterioration during the years of WW I and thereafter, as Studs becomes a fighter, a predator, sexual and otherwise, a hoodlum, and a drunk while trying to hold a job in his father's painting business.The third volume "Judgment Day" is set during the Great Depression.It chronicles Studs' romance with a young woman, Catherine, his physical deterioration from years of drinking and abuse, and his death from pneumonia and a heart condition, leaving Catherine pregnant and alone.Although Farrell(1904 -- 1979) became a prolific writer and a political activist, he remains known primarily for the Studs Lonigan trilogy, a work of his youth.The Library of America published its edition of "Studs Lonigan" in 2004, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Farrell's birth.

"Studs Lonigan" is a tough, raw naturalistic book which describes life of poor. lower middle class Irish Catholics in Chicago in the first third of the 20th Century. The book owes a great deal to Zola, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser and other naturalistic writers. Studs Lonigan himself has his good qualities but he appears doomed to failure.The trilogy is a coming of age novel and Lonigan a character who barely escapes adolescence.Raised in a Catholic family in which his father tries to push the boy to join his painting business while his mother urges the boy to consider whether he has a calling to be a priest, Studs does not know what he wants to do with himself.He is fated to a life on the streets which will be short. As a boy of 14, Studs falls in love with a girl named Lucy whom he continues to idealize throughout the book. Midway through the trilogy, after he and Lucy have lost touch for some years, Studs takes her to a dance and alienates her permanently by what Lucy finds to be his overly agressive sexual demands. Studs tends to vacilate between the ideal of "nice" untouchable girls and raw, crude sex.
He has great difficulty establishing a relationship with a woman, although Catherine, the girl he seduces near the end of the trilogy, may have been a plausibly good match for him.

The book is filled with the life of the streets and the aimless wandering of young men in gangs.It is full of the life of the poolroom, bars, cheap dancehalls, parks, brothels, and illicit gambling parlors.A striking scene in the book develops from a sexual encounter between Studs and a desparate woman resulting from her losses to a bookie who happens to be Studs' brother-in-law.Studs is a fighter and prides himself on whipping at the age of 16 a fellow-punk named Weary Reilly who, in the course of the trilogy comes to a worse end than Studs himself.Studs' life on the streets is presented against the background of his stultifying and tense family life and of the Catholicism of his family in school and church. The treatment of the Church and of religion in general is highly unsympathetic.The latter portions of the trilogy offer a strong portrayal of the Depression and its impact on the urban poor in Chicago.

Readers today will be most disturbed by the racism and anti-semitism, epithets and sterotypes, that appear on almost every page of "Studs Lonigan" and that are inseparable from the story.The portrayals a crude in the extreme. Farrell does not adopt or endorse the racism or bigotry of his characters but he does give an uncompromising and uncomfortably explicit portrayal of it.

The trilogy is long and Farrell's writing can be wordy and stilted. But as I continued with the book, I became taken with it and with Studs.Lonigan is mostly an unlikeable character, but Farrell shows him in his weakness, provincialism, awkwardness, and vulnerablilty. The book captures its character and era. The Library of America edition is edited by novelist Pete Hamil.It includes sparse textual notes but a good chronology of Farrell's life.The edition also includes a short chapter called "boys and girls" deleted from the initial version of "Young Lonigan" because of its sexually explicit character.

Robin Friedman

A Classic
There's really little that one can say about such a classic. Farrell's characters (and there are many, many of them) are true to life. Studs Lonigan especially, and often unfortunately, is true to life. For anyone with Irish and Chicago roots it is an amazing experience.

While the book was originally condemned for its sexual openness, a modern reader will be far more affected by its blatant racism and ethnic intolerance. But this does stand as a true account of the times.

The book itself (Library of America) is a beautiful example of what can still be done in the manner of publication --- makes reading a pleasure.

wasted time
Tough boy wants a girl, finds one, two books over of sos, turned to last chapter to read end of third book, had been bored long enough. Somany words that were repeated over and over and over.

Greatness Circumscribed
That James T. Farrell, author of over fifty books, should be best remembered for his first excursion into naturalism is ironic yet not unparalleled. The Lonigan trilogy teems with the raw experience of Farrell's own youthful days in Chicago, much as Joyce's PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST teems with Joyce's youthful Dublin.

Unlike several of the reviewers here, I found the Studs Lonigan trilogy to be depressingly contemporary. The sermon given to the young people by the priest in volume two reads like the right-wing press of 2006. The outlook and issues are stunningly unchanged. Similarly, the descriptions in volume three of Studs' quest for employment in a glutted market felt to me very much like my own experiences back in 1981-2 as a floundering, adrift college graduate with no connections, no vision, and no prospects for true employment.

The close-minded, nearly airless world of Studs' stream-of-consciousness is a depressing but wholly believable place. Today's American prejudices may slant more toward the Middle East, but the mindless and cruel biases of Studs lurk barely below the surface of much of America in 2006 like a once-believed-eradicated disease ready to bloom and fully infect when the time is right (much like tuberculosis).

The Depression-era landscape of this trilogy is becoming more and more recognizable as the world of our current economically bifurcated, war-on-terrorized American society. Only the names have changed, slightly. The ignoble, stunted, and doomed Studs is replicating throughout our land, his genes slightly spliced and modified to fit a more technologically sophisticated landscape.

Studs Lonigan, for me, was not fraught with wooden prose and unbridgeable abysses of lost cultures. For me, Farrell's vision is a rippled mirror of today. Studs' parents, sisters, and younger brother are all people I have met and known well. His bars continue to dot the American landscape. The discussions of real estate, stocks, and betting all strike me as being grotesquely relevant.

No empathetic reader can truly love Studs: he can be understood while he is simultaneously abhorred. Yet Studs is not a vanished creature. He is the man of our future, the cockroach to come. He is sitting next to all of us, still smoking cigarettes, still binge drinking--and still willing to hate and to kill, if necessary.

It May Be Dated But It's Still Very Relevant
This still is one of the best "coming of age" novels ever written.I doubt there are many people still around who can relate to many of the things that Studs experienced exactly only due to the fact that they were born too late.This is not the point, however, of a true classic (which this trilogy is).The feelings experienced by Studs, described so freely and naturally, are timeless.The language may be objectionable to some, but have you taken a close listen to many of the Rap lyrics on today's CD's and even on radio?The writing and the storyline flow.Unlike most novels published today, this trilogy is a perfect example of an author getting so deeply into his main character that his public bio becomes indistinguishable from him.I'm sure you'll find that most people will recognize the name Studs Lonigan, but ask them who James Farrell is (outside of the context of the novels) and they'll probably not be able to tell you.Concerns that these novels are racist and anti-semitic seem to me to be a bit naive.This stuff is pretty mild compared to the garbage that your average person is subjected to daily in the print and electronic media.I would still recommend it for inclusion in a high school level honors literature program reading list. ... Read more

Product Description
This unique collection of Twain’s essential short stories and semiautobiographical narratives is a testament to the author’s vast imagination. Featuring popular tales such as “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” and “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” as well as some delightful excerpts from The Diaries of Adam and Eve, this compilation also includes darker works written in the author’s twilight years. These selections illuminate the depth of Twain’s artistry, humor, irony, and narrative genius. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Effective Collection
This collection of short stories will is just what it says it is.While it does not give you any additional information on Mark Twain, it does provide you with some of his best short stories and allows you to envision this brilliant writer with some of his finest works.This volume is very humorous, so buy it if you enjoy Mark Twain or just want a good laugh or two.

Unavoidable!
I have no doubt that Mark Twain was one of the greatest writers ever and if you've read his more popular work then I suggest that you sit down with these rarely printed short stories to prove to yourself just what a genius he was. The stories here are so good they're unavoidable for Twain devotees. They amount of imagination crammed into these pages could provoke years of inspiration and pondering.

While they are mostly all unrelated tales, Twain does have one main subtext for pretty much all of them-the futility of religion. Like myself, Twain believes that the romantic, fantastic notion of a judging, ever-watching and vengeful God to be absurd and works in so many ironies and injustices that give them a cruel, but somewhat realistic edge. The story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper is but one shining example.

A lot of the stories are told from Twain's point of view, whether they are true are not I cannot possibly tell, but it's amusing to think of him at the centre of all these adventures.

Of the 23 stories on offer some only last a few pages while epic yarns such as Captain Stormfield's Visit To Heaven can fill-out 51 jam-packed pages. My favorites stories would have to A Private History of a Campaign That Failed (in which Twain and his Rebel pals spend the Civil War hanging around, swimming in ponds and hiding from the Yankees, until they accidently kill an unarmed enemy) and Political Economy (where Twain finds it appropriate to attach a thousand lightning conductors to the top of his house only for it to attract the mother of all lightning storms).

It's a perfect book for any Mark Twain fan, anyone who loves good literature or anyone studying English. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first career-spanning monograph from one of the foremost contemporary realist painters. New York-based artist Harvey Dinnerstein creates hauntingly penetrating portraits and allegorical street scenes. His work over the course of five decades remains fresh and apt for our timedepicting New York as a microcosm of our society's rich pluralismstruggleand resilience. Published to accompany a major exhibition to travel throughout 2008 and beyondthis volume's luscious reproduction and career-spanning scope make this one of the premier art books of the season. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Review from Art Book News at Blogspot
Brooklyn artist Harvey Dinnerstein has been painting portraits since the 1960s, focusing largely on the diversity of races and urban sub-cultures found in the polyglot city of New York. From his earliest days as a painter Dinnerstein has been a steadfast realist, even though abstract art was all the rage in the era and the place where he began his career. Now entering his eighties, this book is the first retrospective on Dinnerstein seen for 30 years.

The book "Underground Together: The Art and Life of Harvey Dinnerstein" starts with some informative biographical chapters on Dinnerstein, before moving to an enjoyable survey of his oil paintings, sketches and pastels. What makes Dinnerstein distinctive as an artist is his pick of subject matter. Unlike some other portrait artists, he has neither sought nor been consumed by commissions from business leaders and influential families. Dinnerstein selects unlikely subjects from the back streets of New York and leans towards African Americans, orthodox Jews, bearded musicians, scarfed migrants, sloppy students and latter-day hippies. Modelling in his studio, these candid figures look back from the paintings towards the viewer with suspicious, weary, or intense stares. The paintings are sympathetic, albeit idealised portrayals. Dinnerstein has some feeling for the spirit of these people.

Dinnerstein's most ambitious works are streetscapes. At times he has thrown himself into allegorical crowd scenes, but unfortunately these attempts come off looking contrived and camp. Far more engrossing are his melancholy depictions of ordinary life, like commuters slumped inside stuffy subway carriages, or navigating the city by bus, or wandering the streets through rain and cold. Artists are often at their best when they perceptively convey the grittiness and mayhem of their times. Dinnerstein is an exemplar of an artist who has had his eyes open to the changes in American life, while other artists have cocooned themselves in abstract, expressionist, or fantasy worlds.

The book reproduces the artworks at a good size. Included among the many plates of finished paintings are additional images of sketches, grey tonal underpaintings on canvas and photographs of the artist at work balancing brushes and mahl stick. It is gratifying to find that Dinnerstein has provided a few paragraphs of background for some of the featured paintings, to explain where he scouted out his subjects, what fired his interest, or how he set about staging the composition.

Until now Dinnerstein's work has been little known outside New York, although this book will now bring greater exposure to this unfashionable traditionalist. I bought this new release from Amazon on the strength of the coverart, knowing nothing of the artist, with total disregard for the old maxim about books and their covers. I am pleased with this impulse buy. This is an abridged version of my review at Art Book News at blogspot.

His oeuvre shows a clarity of vision
Harvey Dinnerstein has been a draftsman and painter for more than 60 years. In this first new collection of his work in 30 years, not only can you see his development over the decades, but also the accompanying essays place the Dinnerstein's works within the artistic trends at the time they were produced. Dinnerstein focused much of his work on highly realistic art, and documenting cultural events and issues at the time; during the late 50s and early 60s, he traveled into the South to produce drawings and paintings documenting the Civil Rights struggle.

Dinnerstein is an excellent artist and, while his subject matter and style may not have been part of the prevailing trends, his oeuvre shows a clarity of vision. Underground Together may be one of the more interesting collections of a major American artist that hasn't received as much attention as he deserves.Greater than 200 paintings, drawings, and photographs and the usual high-quality production Chronicle Books is known for.

the life and work of the prominent Brooklyn artist
In his late seventies, New York--or more specifically, Brooklyn--artist Harvey Dinnerstein has resisted the calls of modernism with its succession of styles, commercialism, and careerism involving courting of celebrity. As the art critic Gabriel Weisberg puts it in his essay, "[D]etermined not to become distracted by the continued ascendancy of modernism...Dinnerstein's inherent toughness led him to recommit to traditions of the past that he revered in order to express his perceptions of contemporary life." The tradition the artist revered especially is humanism; as expressed in Renaissance masters of portrait for example. One way Dinnerstein has kept in this tradition throughout his long career going back to World War II, as Weisberg points out, is by "his dedication to working with the model." This goes beyond the model in the studio (although this can be a source of the paintings) to include Dinnerstein's multicultural Brooklyn neighbors, Brooklyn as a bustling community, and social and political moments such as the Vietnam War era reflected in Brooklyn.

In Pete Hamill's essay, he explains what Weisberg sees as Dinnerstein's traditionalism and aversion to modernism by, "One reason Dinnerstein rejected the siren song of fashionable modernism was very simple: he loved to draw." Though Dinnerstein's work is not simplistic in execution, elements, or conceptualization of subjects, it does patently retain drawing's virtues of simplicity--namely, directness of representation, fidelity, and clarity of expression. Dinnerstein wants you to see his subjects--i. e., the varied individuals he paints--the way he sees them. With him, this is not propaganda, indoctrination, or sentimentality. For he first of all wants you to see them as human beings, and hopefully at least have appreciation for them as such. This is really about as far as the artist goes; although he does express some general socialistic/humanitarian points of view.

Despite not enlisting in the mainstream of modernism, Dinnerstein has not remained unaffected by modernism. With his paintings of African-American women, Muslim men, Hispanics, subway riders, musicians, recent immigrants, and street people in varieties of plain cloth carrying variously-shaped and variously-sized pouches and with bits of different accouterments, he's more attuned to the society of modernism and its cultural encounters and mixtures than most. While the individuals with their naturalness and psychological realism are always the gravity of the paintings, the garb, accessories, headwear, personal possessions, and such beyond the figures are as surely a semiotics of modernism and also postmodernism as other modernist and postmodern artists strain for and often lose sight of in their work.

Retrospective of a Genius' work
Harvey Dinnerstein's work hangs in some of the nation's finest galleries and collections.I've been familiar with him since 2002, met him in 2003 and own a painting featured in this book.

Each of the pieces that are included in this book is presented beautifully, and highlights the breadth of Harvey's career.

It is, simply, beautiful.

Stunning!
A stunning compilation of the works of an American craftsman, Every painting evokes a story. ... Read more

Product Description
Agustín Victor Casasola photographed everyone of consequence in Mexico at the time of the revolution, from Francisco (Pancho) Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and the exiled Russian leader Leon Trotsky to artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. For this splendid collection of Casasola's work, the noted American author Pete Hamill has written a rich essay on the photographer and the Mexico he pictured so well.Essay by Pete Hamill.Hardcover, 9.5 x 12.75 in./220 pgs ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Cassasola's book
Excellent collection of unusual historic black and white photo's for a reasonable price. Fine reproductions

Fabulous
Recently I saw photo exhibit "Mexico The Revolution and Beyond".It was breath taking.Everyone who wants to get an insight of that time period in Mexico should see the exhibitif not the book is the next best thing.I fell in love with the photographer.The book is everything I got from the exhibit and more.Fabulous.

Very pleased with this book.
This book arrived in mint condition and as promised.We are very pleased with this purchase.

A Window into Mexico's Past
Mexico has a great history of producing world class photographers.Along with Hugo Brehme, Augustin Victor Casasola is one of the founders of that tradition.His photographs of the Mexican Revolution have passed into the realm of iconic.Casasola is so esteemed that the Mexican Government purchased all of his negatives and used them as the foundation of a National Photographic Archive.

In 1912, Augustin and his brother Miguel started the Casasola Photo Agency.They hired a number of photographers around the country to take pictures of the great events of the day.Along with portraits of the important people of the time, there are many beautiful photographs of revolutionary soldiers, peasants, urban workers and criminals. A quarter ofbooks photographs are of the Revolution.The rest show Mexico as it was entering into the Modern Age. I especially loved his photographs of Mexico's Jazz Age.

This is a high quality publication produced by Aperture.It is hardback book and is 13" by 9.5" in dimension with 155 photographs.All the photographs were made with large format cameras and in turn the photographs are very clear and detailed. This is a great book for both photobook collectors and people interested in the history of Mexico.Highly recommended.

An excellent way to understand contemporary Mexican history
Contemporary Mexican history is definetely shaped by the events (Mexican Revolution and its impact on Mexican society) that took place in the early 20th century. Casasola could be considered the father of Mexican photojournalism. Along with many other photographers that followed his steps or worked under his wings, Agustin Victor Casasola left an invaluable visual legacy of Mexican history and the participants that took place on it (from the radical painter to the workers on the streets). I recommend this book for anyone interested on Mexican history. ... Read more

Product Description
ARTnews, the oldest art magazine in America and the most widely circulated art magazine in the world, is celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary in 2002. This attractive book celebrates and commemorates this milestone event, presenting one hundred of the best photographic portraits commissioned by and reproduced in the magazine since its origin. These fascinating photographs chronicle the history of the magazine and present a "who's who" of people who have shaped the art world over the last century.

Portrait of the Art World includes photographs of many of the great European and American artists of the twentieth century, including George Bellows, Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock,Alexander Calder, and Alice Neel. The photographers-often as fascinating as their subjects-range from Zaida Ben-Yusuf, Alice Boughton (early members of Alfred Stieglitz's circle), and Jessie Tarbox Beals (perhaps the first woman photojournalist) to Stieglitz himself, Man Ray, and Cecil Beaton. Contemporary photographers featured in the book include Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Arnold Newman, Richard Avedon, and Robert Mapplethorpe.The book also presents an essay by William F. Stapp exploring the historical context of portrait photography in ARTnews; an essay on the history of ARTnews by Pete Hamill; and an essay by Milton Esterow, the current editor and publisher of ARTnews, discussing his personal view of the magazine.

This handsomely illustrated book is the catalogue for an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society from September 27, 2002, to January 5, 2003, which will then travel to Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco (venues to be announced). ... Read more

Product Description
It's a story about coming-of-age and sexual awakening in the mean streets of 1910s Chicago. It's the beginning of a trilogy that will follow Studs Lonigan throughout adolescence. And, claims Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, it reveals "his vision of the truth-the truth about people, the truth about writing, the truth about America." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

William Kennedy, Your Father Is Calling You
Over the past severalyears, as part of re-evaluating the effect ofmy half-Irish diaspora heritage (on my mother's side) on the development of my leftist political consciousness I have read, and in some cases re-read, some of the major works of the Irish-American experience. Of course, any such reading list includes tales from the pen of William Kennedy and his Albany cycle, most famously "Ironweed". And, naturally, as well the tales ofthat displaced Irishman, the recently departed Frank McCourt and his "Angela's Ashes", a story that is so close to the bone of my own "shanty" Irish upbringing that we are forever kindred spirits. That said, here to my mind is the " max daddy" of all the American disapora storytellers, James T. Farrell, and his now rightly famous trilogy, "Studs Lonigan" (hereafter, "Studs").

Now my first kinship with James T. Farrell is not through literature, but rather through politics. For a period, and an important one at that, Farrell was a stalwart pro-communist, anti-Stalinist militant writer who served with distinction and honor on the John Dewey headed- Leon Trotsky Commission that tried to determine whether Trotsky was, or was not guilty, of crimes against his beloved Soviet Union during the height of Stalin's Moscow Trials in the late 1930s.Farrell rendered further serious services to the left-wing when he helped organize the defense of the leaders of the Socialist Workers Party during the beginning of World War II when the Roosevelt government had them jailed for opposition to that war. Thus, Farrell came with some good political credential in the eyes of this reviewer.

And in his storytelling of his people, the Chicago Irish, Farrell does not let us down either."Studs" is only marginally concerned with political issues, and then only of the bourgeois kind rampant amount the Irish in the early part of the 20th century when they were taking over local politics in a number of cities from their former WASP guardians. However, he has hit so many "hot buttons" about "lace curtain" Irish sensibilities and the struggle against "shanty" Irishness that he, Kennedy, and McCourt could have easily compared notes for their respective works.

"Studs", even at a young age, and this first book of the trilogy only goes up to his late teens, is already having his existential crisis at that tender age. And that crisis for him is the tension between that surface "lace curtain" Irish sensibility that both his father and mother are, in their own very familiar way (familiar to anyone who has had the least bit of traditional Irish upbringing), trying to instill and his natural inclination to go "shanty" (hang out on corners with the guys, drink, loaf, and chase girls, or at least dream of chasing girls). For those who know, and even for those who don't know, Farrell gives us a primer here of common Irish experiences; the central role of the Church in daily and weekly life, at least on the surface; the "virtues" of parochial school education by the good sisters; the need to keep the "dirty linen" of family life in the home, and away from inquisitive neighbors; and, most importantly, the never-ending quest of what to do about girls. That last point drives home, as it does for almost all of us, the real central problem of early teenage existence. Hey, all of this sounds to me like it could have been written today about Irish-American kids, right? And that is what makes Farrell's work resonant to our ears and our eyes ,and is such a good work of literature. More later, as "Studs" moves into manhood.

TOUGH KID, BRILLIANT WRITING
YOUNG LONIGAN, the short novel that introduces the STUDS LONIGAN trilogy, is the brilliant evocation of the tough youth of a tough kid in pre-WWI Chicago.The prose is tour-de-force stream-of-consciousness.It seeps into the mind of a smart, flawed, hilarious kid (imagine Max Fisher without the scholarship, or Stephen Dedalus without the educated abracadabra) and it takes you right into the depths of your own conflicted youth.If you're a reader, you'll devour this book (and its successors); if you're a writer, you'll emulate it. ... Read more

Product Description

On the 150th anniversary of the Irish famine which sparked the wave of emigration that forever shaped the course of the American nation, The Irish In America celebrates the comprehensive and vibrant history. Through illuminating essays and contributions from noted Irish American personalities, the audiobook paints a vivid picture of the Irish experience in the United States.

This history is told through selections whose themes are taken from the most important institutions of Irish life: the Parish, the Precinct, the Work, the Players and the Family. The Irish identity in America is captured through the personal stories of families workers local churches. entertainers, and many others, culminating in an unusually moving and modulated social, cultural, and political history of Irish Americans.

Customer Reviews (2)

Beautiful book, well done and full of facts.
As a person of Irish descent, I was very happy to see "The Irish in America".This book is full of colorful illustrations showing what the Irish have accomplished in this country.I am referencing the book in my MA, History Thesis, this Autumn.

On page 57, however, the editors have made an understandable error.They attribute the founding of Manhattan College (1853), De La Salle University (1863) and St. Mary's (Moraga, California, (1863) to the Irish Christian Brothers.As a 1965 graduate of Manhattan College, I can tell you that these three colleges were founded by the French Christian Brothers, also know as the De La Salle Brothers.This teaching order was founded in Paris by St. John Baptist de la Salle, and predates the Irish Christian Brothers by almost two hundred years. To my knowledge, the only college founded by the Irish Christian Brothers in the U.S. is Iona College (1940) in New York. Personally, I enjoyed the book, found new facts about the Irish in America, and would recommend itto any Irish or Irish-American person.

Famous Irish offer engrossing overview of culture in USA
Coffey and Golway give a wonderful overview of the experiences of Irish men and women in the United States. Coming to the U.S. as a result of political an religious oppression, as well as a result of the potato blight in the mid-19th century, the Irish worked hard to gain respectablity and political voices as American citizens. In many cases, especially in the early 20th Century, to be Irish was to be a second class citizen in the U.S. Today's attitudes prove that the Irish have come a long way in American society from being judged as such to becoming a very proud and celebrated nationality in our country.

Coffey and Golway use numerous anecdotes, excerpts, and other quotations from famous and not so famous Irish Americans. Included in this book are Denis Leary, Frank McCourt, and a forward by Patrick Kennedy. Reflections of these Irish-American personalities on their grandparents' or parents' lives and hard work, as well as memories of Catholic school, and other aspects of Irish-American life. Glossy photographs accent each passage beautifully and add to the overall attraction of the book. Contributions by all the authors provides a celebration of Irish ethnicity and heritage in the United States that is portrayed as humorous, melancholy, but overall proud. This book accents the PBS Documentary by the same name very nicely. After reading this book, I wished in a sense, that I had some Irish heritage. ... Read more

Product Description
From Dave the Dude to Al Capone: a defining collection from the world of Damon Runyon

Damon Runyon grew up in the West, moved to New York City, and became one of the leading voices of American popular culture. From sports writing to short fiction, this unique collection offers an eclectic sampling of his extraordinary talent. Here are newspaper pieces, stories- including the last one he ever composed-poetry, and, of course, the Broadway tales for which he is chiefly remembered: Guys and Dolls, Blood Pressure, The Bloodhounds of Broadway, and others. Featuring works that are impossible to find elsewhere, and Runyon's signature eye for detail-particularly the sounds, smells, and tastes of New York-this book brings an American icon to a new generation of readers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Better than Guys and Dolls (the Musical)
Damon Runyon has a wonderful formula that really doesn't grow old.His stories, some of which formed the basis for the musical, Guys and Dolls, are clever, witty, insightful, timeless, and just plain wonderful writing.I love the musical -- it's always been one of my favorites, in all aspects, characters, plot, music, etc -- and Runyon's book is that much more enjoyable.Highly recommend for escape, but with substance.

Much more than shtick
Readers who know Damon Runyon only through his Broadway stories may think that he was a writer of shtick. Good shtick, but shtick. This Penguin collection shows that not to be the case.

Right from the start, when he was under 30, Runyon could write a good running story, although he was nearly 50 before he began writing fiction regularly. He seems to have found his Broadway voice right off the bat when he began writing the Guys and Dolls stories in 1929. Although he ground out nearly a story a month for Collier's, the quality remained high. He never seems to have rushed or to have tossed one off.

But as this collection shows, something dark happened to Runyon's fiction as time went by. It is sometimes claimed that a thoughtful editor's selection can change the way readers value a writer. This supposedly happened when the Viking Portable Faulkner rescued William Faulkner from relegation to a place as an oddball failure.

It is not stated who made the selections in this 2008 collection, the latest of many, but presumably Professor Daniel Schwartz had a big hand in it. I cannot say I think much of his commentary, which sounds at times as if he didn't read the stories. At least, while I hear the Yiddish slang in the Broadway stories, I don't hear the Italian that Schwartz says is so prevalent. Some of his other comments seem equally off base.

However, by arranging the Broadway stories in order of publication (for the practical reason that the characters recur and need to be properly introduced, he says), and by including very early stories, it becomes obvious that Runyon's plots got more violent over time.

Many, perhaps most of his stories were reworkings of news events -- the shootings of gamblers, kidnappings etc. But right from the start, Runyon softened real crimes. The 1907 "Defense of Strikerville," presumably based on a particular event, though I cannot identify which one, turned militia assaults on helpless miners and their families with real bullets into a comic snowball fight. (The Ludlow Massacre would be the template, but it happened later.)

The early Broadway stories, too, tended to rework real violence into comic horseplay. As in Shakespeare, there was plenty of murder in the background but almost always off stage. In the early stories, the right guy and the right doll usually ended up mated, and those were the stories that Hollywood liked, like "Madame La Gimp."

Even the tearjerkers, which Hollywood liked even better, saw death come from disease, not the mouth of a John Roscoe, as in "Little Miss Marker." The apparent exception, "Dark Dolores," proves this rule. The wronged doll resorts to trickery and natural forces, not guns, for her revenge.

Later, the denouements turned more and more to gunplay, notably in the extremely bitter "Sense of Humor."I don't think Runyon's view of life darkened so very much. The very last piece he wrote, a history of the Stork Club, was bright; and the essays he wrote about his own final illness were as realistic and tough as anything he ever wrote about Broadway, but also without self-pity -- or much of any other kind of pity.

I suspect the gunplay and on-stage violence were a reaction to the movies. His Broadway stories even compare his real originals at times to the pretend tough guys like Robinson and Cagney. Stories on the printed page are capable of more subtlety than visual stories. That is why film "documentaries" always have to focus on vigorous action even when quiet negotiations were the real story, and that is why newspaper stories are inherently more balanced than televised accounts of the same event.

But when the two collide, it is print that moves toward the graphic, trying to hold an audience; the graphic presentations never, ever veer toward subtlety and complexity. I think Runyon's stories display that in an early stage of the debasement of public presentation.

Runyon may have had to play to the taste of the times, but he never lost his edge. Just about the time he wrote "Sense of Humor," he also wrote "The Lemon-drop Kid," where disease, not gunplay, carries the plot, and nobody, not even Runyon, ever wrote a more bitter tale.

From first to last, Runyon never wavered from the view, expressed by Sam the Gonoph in a late story ("A Nice Price," his bloodiest): "All life is six to five against."

Good collection, but missing some stories
I was looking for a complete, unabridged collection of the "Broadway" stories of Damon Runyon---the ones they based the musical "Guys and Dolls" on.This comes close, but isn't quite complete---I know of at least one story ("Lonely Heart") that isn't present, and there may be others.

Even so, it's got a good, solid selection of them, and is a good selection for someone who wants to get acquainted with the unique voice of Damon Runyon.His unique style has become so iconic in its way that I've seen it used (in, among other places, the comic book _Wolff and Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre_) to indicate that the speaker is an underworld type.

Apart from missing at least a few stories, the only other nit I can find to pick is that the typeface is smaller and finer than I care for.But that's just me.

A Curly Wolf
Damon Runyon's narrator calls someone a "curly wolf" in one these stories. I have no idea what this means, but I will remember it for a long time. I imagine a curly wolf is not a good thing to be, as many of his characters have character issues. He may have made this term up, along with others like "the old phonus bolonus." Either way, about two stories in, I asked myself, "Where has this guy been all my life?" I can't believe I went as long as I did without these hilarious and touching stories. Buy this book and if you don't like it, check your pulse.

Great Book Awful Printig
Every short story are truley great, but the quality of the printing is just awful. You just can't control LOL wich is somewhat embarrising. I'll read every story, What a wonderful writer he is. ... Read more