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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.
Compelling writing by a master of historical fiction, as evidenced in the author’s critically-acclaimed prequel Light of the Diddicoy.
Price: $15.95
Pages: 356
Publisher: Three Rooms Press
Imprint: Three Rooms Press
Publication Date:
18 October 2016
Trim Size: 8.00 X 5.25 in
ISBN: 9781941110423
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
FICTION / Historical, FICTION / Crime, FICTION / Thrillers / Crime, FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical, FICTION / Cultural Heritage
“A grinding tale of death and survival.” —Publishers Weekly
“Not only a chronicle of a people, but also the story of one lonesome immigrant, struggling to survive in a frightening land . . . William Garrity is a great character, a teenager getting by (just barely) by the power of his courage and wit, and a tormented soul who is forced to make terrible choices without looking back.” —LitKicks
"Loingsigh has an urgent story to tell. And he tells it well . . . Loingsigh's great strength is his unsentimental take on the immigrant experience which—despite the rancor of today's debate—often acquires a sepia tone when it is discussed in the past tense. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET should be required reading for those who rail about how today's immigrants 'refuse to assimilate.' ”—Brooklyn Rail
“The quintessential read for 21st century Brooklyn.”—Irish Central
“In his beautiful, passionate prose, Loingsigh — an Irishman himself — continually reminds us of the motherland and the suffering of Irish emigrants. . . . EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET is a gangster story that reads more like “Robin Hood” than The Godfather because of these men’s inner strength and the love they have for each other. . . . It’s also an intimate look at criminals whose lives have been hardened by oppression and weathered by storms, while inside their rough shells they hide soft hearts.”—Washington Independent Review of Books
“When accomplished Irish American writers address the lives and experiences of the early 20th century Irish in New York they are recording, but also in a deeper sense reclaiming, a lost heritage. This is painstaking work that's worth celebrating in its own right, but then to give us a vivid portrait of these flinty people in all their complexity and courage is a thing to cheer about. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET . . . is a high wire act of creativity and reclamation that deserves the widest possible audience.”—Irish Central
“A fight for survival in New York City’s brawling street, mirroring Ireland’s own fledgling independence movement.”—Omni Mystery News “History often fails to record the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women. But Eamon Loingsigh reminds us that a skilled novelist can bring to life people and places forgotten by history.”—Terry Golway, author, Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics
“A century following the first and until now last great novel of the Brooklyn waterfront, Ernest Poole's The Harbor, Eamon Loingsigh offers this gripping tale, soaked in the Irish immigrant dockworker experience and laden with real life legends from a vanished world.”—James T. Fisher, author, On the Irish Waterfront
“In EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET Eamon Loingsigh recreates the forgotten world of Irish immigrant New York with a combination of accuracy and drama found only in the best historical fiction.”—Tyler Anbinder, professor of history, George Washington University; author, Five Points
“Not only a chronicle of a people, but also the story of one lonesome immigrant, struggling to survive in a frightening land . . . William Garrity is a great character, a teenager getting by (just barely) by the power of his courage and wit, and a tormented soul who is forced to make terrible choices without looking back.” —LitKicks
"Loingsigh has an urgent story to tell. And he tells it well . . . Loingsigh's great strength is his unsentimental take on the immigrant experience which—despite the rancor of today's debate—often acquires a sepia tone when it is discussed in the past tense. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET should be required reading for those who rail about how today's immigrants 'refuse to assimilate.' ”—Brooklyn Rail
“The quintessential read for 21st century Brooklyn.”—Irish Central
“In his beautiful, passionate prose, Loingsigh — an Irishman himself — continually reminds us of the motherland and the suffering of Irish emigrants. . . . EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET is a gangster story that reads more like “Robin Hood” than The Godfather because of these men’s inner strength and the love they have for each other. . . . It’s also an intimate look at criminals whose lives have been hardened by oppression and weathered by storms, while inside their rough shells they hide soft hearts.”—Washington Independent Review of Books
“When accomplished Irish American writers address the lives and experiences of the early 20th century Irish in New York they are recording, but also in a deeper sense reclaiming, a lost heritage. This is painstaking work that's worth celebrating in its own right, but then to give us a vivid portrait of these flinty people in all their complexity and courage is a thing to cheer about. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET . . . is a high wire act of creativity and reclamation that deserves the widest possible audience.”—Irish Central
“A fight for survival in New York City’s brawling street, mirroring Ireland’s own fledgling independence movement.”—Omni Mystery News “History often fails to record the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women. But Eamon Loingsigh reminds us that a skilled novelist can bring to life people and places forgotten by history.”—Terry Golway, author, Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics
“A century following the first and until now last great novel of the Brooklyn waterfront, Ernest Poole's The Harbor, Eamon Loingsigh offers this gripping tale, soaked in the Irish immigrant dockworker experience and laden with real life legends from a vanished world.”—James T. Fisher, author, On the Irish Waterfront
“In EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET Eamon Loingsigh recreates the forgotten world of Irish immigrant New York with a combination of accuracy and drama found only in the best historical fiction.”—Tyler Anbinder, professor of history, George Washington University; author, Five Points
Journalist/novelist Eamon Loingsigh has long held a great fascination for the history of Irish-Americans in New York City. His family emigrated from Ireland in the late nineteenth century, and his grandfather and great-grandfather ran a longshoreman’s saloon on Hudson Street in Manhattan from 1906 to the late 1970s. Loingsigh studied journalism at University of South Florida. He is the author of the novel Light of the Diddicoy (Volume I of the Auld Irishtown trilogy), Exile on Bridge Street (Volume II of the Auld Irishtown trilogy), the novella An Affair of Concoctions and the poetry collection, Love and Maladies, as well as numerous articles on Irish-American history. He lives in Brooklyn.