IRISHMAN IN AMERICA

Press, 24 June 1978, Page 17

IRISHMAN IN AMERICA

The Passion of Richard Brown. By Richard Howard Brown. Gordon and Cremonesi. 167 pp. $16.40. (Reviewed by Richard Corballis) This is an English reprint of a book first published in 1974 in the United States. Technically the English edition is something of a disaster. The resume on the dust-jacket, which has been devised to present the book as a “good read,” is misleading and misspelt. It tells us nothing whatsoever about the author. This is an inexcusable oversight since the book is a highly personal memoir. Then the text itself

— or my copy of it at any rate — is marred by a gross error in collation: a whole gathering (32 pages) has been bound out of place. This slipshod presentation is most unfortunate, for the book is a good one. It is an intelligent, urbane account of an Irish-American’s attempt to come to terms with his Catholic Irish ancestry. It can be appreciated on several levels. As a simple documentary it sketches some vivid scenes of I.R.A. activity on both sides of the Atlantic. At a political level it demonstrates the incompatibility of American capitalism and I.R.A. socialism — an incompatibility which ensures that Richard Brown can never quite assume the Irish skin which he so covets. And more generally still, it explores some of the many ways in which human beings seek to establish an identity for themselves. The book is certainly a “good read” as the publishers insist, but it is much more than that. It deserves a carefully executed second edition.