Research Catalog

Title

Irish-American autobiography : the divided hearts of athletes, priests, pilgrims, and more / James Silas Rogers.

Author

Rogers, James (James Silas)

Publication

Washington, D.C. : The Catholic University of America Press, [2016]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

184 pages; 22 cm

Summary

Opens a new window on the shifting meanings of Irishness over the twentieth century, by looking at a range of works that have never before been considered as a distinct body of literature. Opening with celebrity memoirs from athletes like boxer John L. Sullivan and ballplayer Connie Mack--written when the Irish were eager to put their raffish origins behind them--later chapters trace the many tensions, often unspoken, registered by Irish Americans who've told their life stories. New York saloonkeepers and South Boston step dancers set themselves against the larger culture, setting a pattern of being on the outside looking in. Even the classic 1950s TV comedy The Honeymooners speaks to the urban Irish origins, and the poignant sense of exclusion felt by its creator Jackie Gleason. Catholicism, so key to the identity of earlier generations of Irish Americans, has also evolved. One chapter looks at the painful diffidence of priest autobiographers, and others reveal how traditional Irish Catholic ideas of the guardian angel and pilgrimage have evolved and stayed potent down to our own time. --From publisher description.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

• Irish Americans > Biography > History and criticism
• American prose literature > History and criticism
• Autobiography > Irish American authors
• Irish Americans > Ethnic identity
• Irish Americans in popular culture

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Machine generated contents note: 1. Sporting Gentlemen: The Memoirs of John L. Sullivan, James J. Corbett, and Connie Mack -- 2. Dancing Like Merry Hell: Barbara Mullen's Life Is My Adventure -- 3. Joseph Mitchell's Irish Imagination -- 4. The Honeymooners: Jackie Gleason's Memoir of Brooklyn -- 5. A Culture of Diffidence: Mid-Century Irish-American Priests' Autobiographies -- 6. Flowering Absences: Recent Irish Writers and Genealogical Dead Ends -- 7. `Tis, Meaning Maybe: The Uncertain Last Words of Angela's Ashes -- 8. "Someone Watching Your Back": Guardian Angels in Michael Patrick MacDonald's All Souls -- 9. Picture Windows: Irish-American Memoirs of the Suburbs -- 10. Secular Pilgrimages: Recent Irish-American Memoir and Journeys of Healing.

ISBN

• 9780813229188
• 0813229189

LCCN

^^2016036445

OCLC

• 966273499
• SCSB-12201553

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library