Leon Uris’s Trinity remains a sore spot on our bookshelf. It was one of our “required reading” goals last year (along with Faulkner, Proust, and The Mists of Avalon). We still haven’t cracked the spine, and yes, we are ashamed of ourselves.
But in the spirit of literary procrastination, PETER QUINN’s latest collection of essays, Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America, seems a more accessible substitute for our Irish-history needs — at least for now. Novelist and speechwriter Quinn, a third-generation Irish-American, offers portraits of James Cagney, Edgar Allan Poe, and an assortment of politicians, cops, archbishops, and writers in his attempt to elucidate the Irish-American experience; the Washington Post Book World’s Jonathan Yardley calls the result “carefully argued and handsomely written.” Plus, it weighs in at a light and easy 320 pages (hardcover!
), so you won’t need a forklift to get it onto the commuter train or the MBTA. We’re sold. Catch Quinn when he reads and signs at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | 7 pm | free | 617.
566.6660.
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