February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
SEARCHING FOR JOHN FORD
Joseph McBride
In one sense you don’t have to search far for John Ford. On any given night one of his movies is on TV or is being handed over the counter at a video store. But this search is about far more than the life story of a legendary Hollywood director. For starters, the search must begin with a kid named John Feeney, Ford’s real name. The Feeney family came from Connemara in Ireland’s rugged west, a part of the world where the renamed John Ford would return to make his classic "The Quiet Man." But it was in America’s rugged west that Ford’s talent behind the camera found its full force, often in collaboration with another towering figure in Irish America, John Wayne. In a review of McBride’s book, and it’s a big one about a big subject, director Martin Scorsese argues that "Searching for John Ford" should be "compulsory reading," particularly for younger readers less familiar with Ford’s sweeping and timeless screen dramas. St. Martin’s Press. 838 pp. $40.
IRISH HUNGER
Edited by Tom Hayden
Veteran political activist Tom Hayden draws the connection between the Great Hunger in Ireland and starvation in the world today in this collection of essays and commentaries by a number of leading Irish writers and commentators, including Jimmy Breslin, Gabriel Byrne, James Carroll, Tim Pat Coogan, Terry Golway, Peter Quinn and Hayden himself. Now in paperback. Roberts Rinehart (1 [800] 462-6420). 300 pp. $15.95.
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KILROY WAS HERE
Larry Kirwan
Kirwan’s latest CD offering sees the Black 47 veteran surrounded by a dozen or so musicians and vocalists, but above it all is Kirwan himself a singer/songwriter who has always placed great emphasis on packing a story into a tune rather than simply a string of vocals. "Kilroy Was Here" features 11 tracks and, at one point, the familiar voice of Malachy McCourt. For details check the a 47 website at www.black47.com.
THE IRISH WINE TRILOGY
Dick Wimmer
Art, love, murder and fame are promised in Wimmer’s story spanning 10 years, two continents and related in three novels between one cover. The central character is a brilliant Irish painter, Seamus Boyne, who has a knack for falling into misadventure. Wimmer, a Long Island native, is a professor of English at Pepperdine University in California and his work has been compared to J.P. Donleavy and even James Joyce. Penguin paperback. 320 pp. $13.