Exile on Bridge Street
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Exile on Bridge Street details teenage Irish immigrant Liam Garrity's struggle to adulthood in pre-Prohibition Brooklyn. Back home, Ireland's fight for its own independence erupts with the 1916 Easter Rising. The fate of Garrity's father, an Irish rebel, is unknown, which leaves his mother and two sisters vulnerable on the family farm as British troops swarm, seeking reprisals. Garrity must organize their departure to New York immediately. In Brooklyn, Garrity is adopted by Dinny Meehan, leader of a longshoremen gang based in an “Irishtown” saloon under the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. Meehan vows to help Garrity and his family. But just as Ireland struggles for independence, Garrity faces great obstacles in his own coming of age on the violent Brooklyn waterfront. World War I, the Spanish Influenza, the temperance movement, the rise of Italian organized crime, police, unions and shipping and dock companies all target the Brooklyn Irish gang and threaten Garrity’s chances at bringing his family to New York. When “Wild Bill” Lovett, one of the gang's dockbosses vies to take over, both Meehan and Garrity face a fight for survival in New York City's brawling streets mirroring Ireland’s own fledgling independence movement.
Compelling writing by a master of historical fiction, as evidenced in the author’s critically-acclaimed prequel Light of the Diddicoy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this grinding tale of death and survival, the sequel to Light of the Diddicoy, elderly Irish immigrant William "Liam" Garrity tells of his life in Brooklyn from 1916, when he was 15 and became known as a thief of pencils, to 1918. Loingsigh vividly and repeatedly evokes the crushing poverty, the harsh living conditions, the brutally violent struggle to have and to hold jobs, and the constant scramble for leadership among the inhabitants of Brooklyn's Irishtown. Garrity finds his protector and mentor in powerful Dinny Meehan, who teaches him to be a man. The teenager's efforts to find his place in the community require him to fight and to kill. Garrity's chief aim is to save enough from his earnings to bring his mother and two sisters to America, and he never loses sight of that goal. Readers should be prepared for some florid prose and a large cast of characters, whose roles and allegiances are often difficult to follow or understand.
