Synopses & Reviews
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
Though she longs to return and show her family what she has made of herself, her decision to spare her children knowledge of a secret in her past forces her to keep her life in New York separate from the life she once loved in Ireland, and tears her from the people she holds closest. Even fifty years later, when the Ireland of her memory bears little resemblance to that of the present day, she fears that it is still possible to lose all when she discovers that her childrenwith the best of intentionshave conspired to unite the worlds shes so carefully kept separate for decades.
A beautifully old-fashioned novel, The Walking People is a debut of remarkable range and power.
Synopsis
"Mary Beth Keane has produced a compelling drama of transatlantic Irish life, told with a truthfulness that is felt not only in the sweep and charm of the story but in its very sentences. The Walking People is an irresistible blend of narrative and syntactic authenticity."--Billy Collins, United States Poet Laureate 2001-2003
"A marvel of originality and accomplishment. Keane writes about Ireland and the Irish in a completely new way; she explores the situation of "new" immigrants with a Balzacian eye for detail and the implications of class, money, and social situation. At the same time, she writes with a style that is simultaneously pellucid and poetic; many worlds come clear to us, the underworld of the "sandhogs," the countryside of the West of Ireland, the camps of the travelers, the counters of Macy's and Bloomingdales. This is an astonishing debut, and it marks the appearance of a truly major writer."--Mary Gordon, author of Circling My Mother
About the Author
MARY BETH KEANE attended Barnard College and earned an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow. She was a winner of the Chicago Tribunes Nelson Algren Prize in 2004 and was a 2005 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Mary Beth Keane on PowellsBooks.Blog
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