Synopses & Reviews
Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up in "the best place in the world" the Old Colony projects of South Boston where 85 percent of the residents collect welfare in an area with the highest concentration of impoverished whites in the U.S. In All Souls, MacDonald takes us deep into the secret heart of Southie. With radiant insight, he opens up a contradictory world, where residents are besieged by gangs and crime but refuse to admit any problems, remaining fiercely loyal to their community. MacDonald also introduces us to the unforgettable people who inhabit this proud neighborhood. We meet his mother, Ma MacDonald, an accordion-playing, spiked-heel-wearing, indomitable mother to all; Whitey Bulger, the lord of Southie, gangster and father figure, protector and punisher; and Michael's beloved siblings, nearly half of whom were lost forever to drugs, murder, or suicide. By turns explosive and touching, All Souls ultimately shares a powerful message of hope, renewal, and redemption.
Review
"His anecdotes have the searing power of a redeemed sinner's fiery sermon. His swift, conversational style sweeps you into his anger and sorrow. He is a born rabble-rouser whose emotional power numbs the reader's reason." Charles Carberry, USA Today
Review
"What makes the book significant, however, are not the neighborhood secrets MacDonald discloses, but the possibility it holds out for a new way to think and talk about race in America...the gritty saga of the South Boston MacDonalds should be read by anybody looking for a gripping and full account of poverty in urban America." The Weekly Standard
Review
"MacDonald's nimble prose and detailed recall of grim times long past make for luminous reading; his hard-won conception of how ghettoized poverty spawns localized violence, and the dignity he brings to lives snuffed out in chaos, gives All Souls a moral urgency usually lacking in current memoir or crime prose. A remarkable work." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER "All Souls is the written equivalent of an Irish wake, where revelers dance and sing the dead person's praises. In that same style, the book leavens tragedy with dashes of humor but preserves the heartbreaking details."--New York Times Book Review
A breakaway bestseller since its first printing, All Souls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald's Southie, the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration of white poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger's crime schemes and busing riots, MacDonald's Southie is populated by sharply hewn characters. We meet Ma, Michael's mini-skirted, accordian-playing, single mother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children. And there are Michael's older siblings Davey, sweet artist-dreamer; Kevin, child genius of scam; and Frankie, Golden Gloves boxer and neighborhood hero whose lives are high-wire acts played out in a world of poverty and pride. Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community's code of silence, MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but moving honesty. All Souls is heartbreaking testimony to lives lost too early, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be "the best place in the world."
Synopsis
A breakaway bestseller since its first printing, All Souls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald's Southie, the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration of white poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger's crime schemes and busing riots, MacDonald's Southie is populated by sharply hewn characters like his Ma, a miniskirted, accordion-playing single mother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children. Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community's code of silence, MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but moving honesty.
About the Author
Michael Patrick MacDonald, the author of the best-selling All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, is currently writing the screenplay for All Souls under an option agreement with Crossroads Entertainment. Ron Shelton is scheduled to direct the movie.