The most startling fact about Edwin O'Connor's life was its brevity The acclaimed author of such mid-century Irish and Catholic classics as 'The Last Hurrah' and 'The Edge of Sadness' seemed a fit and healthy man. Yet he died when he was just 49 in 1968.

During an interview several years ago Edna O rsquo Brien told me a story about an appearance of hers in the 1960 rsquo s on an Irish television program during which the host said to the studio audience Hands up all of you who think Edna O rsquo Brien has shamed her country Most hands of course

Alice McDermott rsquo s fiction like William Kennedy rsquo s is to be praised if for no other reason than that it transcends the tradition of Irish-American fiction established by James T Farrell back in the 1930 rsquo s Since Studs Lonigan first swaggered onto the literary stage Irish-America

In recent years several states have passed laws mandating that the Irish Famine of the 1840 rsquo s be taught in public schools alongside African slavery and the Jewish Holocaust Equating this trinity of horrors Famine curriculum supporters say is not only appropriate but historically enlighten

In a new book of essays entitled Reading William Kennedy Syracuse University Press Michael Patrick Gillespie writes that Kennedy rsquo s novels are infused with Catholic dogma however a broad more diverse ethical system than that articulated in The Baltimore Catechism informs his writing That

Frank McCourt rsquo s impoverished youth in Limerick recalled so vividly and brutally in Angela rsquo s Ashes actually could have been much worse according to the acclaimed author rsquo s cousin ldquo When we were in Killarney industrial school rdquo Pat Sheehan tells the writer and documen