I finished my book Finn’s Clock shortly before our country’s latest immigration debate flared into an ideological riot. At the first mention of a border wall, this tale about a young Irish immigrant working on Boston Harbor in 1853 acquired a deeper resonance. It’s impossible not to compare our current situation to the actions of that era’s anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party, and to the dogged resilience of the novel’s hero, Finn O’Neill, determined to make a place for himself in this “land of the free” despite the odds. On Wednesday evening, November 20th, in the CATV studio in White River Junction, I’ll present “Becoming American Then: the Boston Irish in 1853.” The combination reading and presentation explores the origins of Finn’s story – the choice of the book’s setting and period, the research that revealed the changing economic and social structure of Bostonian culture, the overwhelming effect of the Irish potato famine Read More […]