All Souls: A Family Story From Southie by Michael Patrick MacDonald

It seemed a crime to have worked at Beacon Press for so long and to never have read All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald. In poignant and honest prose MacDonald describes his childhood in South Boston, “southie” as it is affectionately known here in Boston. Although the book certainly touches on exciting topics like Whitey Bulger and the busing riots, its quiet strength is found in MacDonald’s depiction of his family life, his proud Irish neighborhood and his conflicting feelings about both. MacDonald has continued his work as a non-violence advocate in Boston and New York City.

The latest addition to the ReVisioning US History series at Beacon Press, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States is both honest and unwavering and should become an essential text in understanding US history and the origins of the United States. Dunbar-Ortiz reframes US History to dismantle foundation myths and reveals a brutal system of colonialism and a fictitious ideology meant to cover its violence. It’s not just about a faraway past, however, As Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams, adds, “Spoiler alert: the colonial era is still here, and so are the Indians.”

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue

I was immediately taken aback by Frog Music – and that doesn’t happen very often. The portrayal of the underbelly of San Francisco in the 1870’s, with the raging smallpox epidemic, the underlying racial tension with Chinese immigrants, and the oppressive heat, was fascinating. Donoghue’s characters were unlikeable and flawed but the story she weaves with them is so fascinating. I’ve seen that the book has been marketed as a sort of mystery but I think that’s selling the book a little short and might leaves readers expecting a mystery-thriller disappointed. A great, surprising book!

Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.

The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny’s murderer to justice–if he doesn’t track her down first. The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It’s the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.

In thrilling, cinematic style, Frog Music digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue’s lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.

The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham

It’s the centennial of the publication of Dubliners and Joyce seems to be everywhere. The Most Dangerous Book follows the publication history of Ulysses, detailing the book’s severe censorship and period of illegality, Joyce’s diminishing health, and the modernist movement that propelled Ulysses into notoriety. Birmingham is engaging and thorough, documenting the spirit of the age that created and supported Joyce and his work of genius with wonderful profiles of figures like Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Beach. The book is immensely readable and gripping and I look forward to Birmingham’s next works of scholarship.