Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Grace-filled Tuesdays (Book Club "Meeting" #3)

Okay, I think I've settled on a meme for the Grace-filled Tuesdays book club.  At least for now.  (Will the people at "meetville.com" mind if I use it, do you think?)

As my friend Erin over at Seven Little Australians and Counting noted recently, my two novels--Finding Grace and Erin's Ring--are quite different in many aspects.  FG is much longer and deals with a larger cast of characters and a greater number of life-altering events (both for the characters and for the world at large); ER, although partly historical novel, focuses on a much more narrow scope, is shorter, and is more appropriate for even younger readers.  But the two books do have one thing in common: they are filled with characters who are desperately in need of God's saving grace.

Erin's Ring is the type of book that I actually thought about writing way back in 2007, when I decided it was finally time (with my youngest son getting ready to enter high school) to fulfill a dream I'd harbored since I was a young bookworm scribbling stories of her own in a marble school notebook.  I started doing some historical research for it, but I spilled a full cup of coffee all over my stack of print-outs--a classic Laura move, CLASSIC!--and my papers were such an unsalvageable mess that I took the incident as a sign that this was not the book I was meant to write.  (That part in FG where Grace Kelly spills hot cocoa all over herself at the football game?  Semi-autobiographical.)  After praying for inspiration at Mass one weekday summer morning, the story that became Finding Grace began to take shape almost immediately, and I spent the next four-plus years writing that first novel.  Set in Plattsburgh, NY, in the 1970's, FG's heroine comes of age during the era that I did; it is a modern tale (although to the youth of today, it might read like historical fiction!). 

But the seeds of a story about 19th-century Irish immigrants, set in the town where we raised our sons, remained dormant in the back of my brain, waiting to take root.  I loved the history of Dover, NH--especially because Irish-Catholic immigrants had played such a big role in it.  My mother's maiden name is Kelly, and my husband is pure-bred Irish on both sides.  His grandfather came to America from County Cork at 19.  FG has Irish-Catholics in it, but they're not first-generation Irish; I always thought it would be fun to write something about "right off the boat" immigrants like this handsome Irishman who died much too young, long before his grandson and namesake ever got to meet him.
My husband and I moved to Dover in 1989. It wasn't long before I began to learn about the rich and fascinating history of this small New England city, which was settled in 1623 and is the oldest permanent settlement in the state. Dover was the site of Indian massacres, epic fires, and devastating floods--to name just a few of the historical events you could write a book about. But what interested me most (having a part-Irish mom and an all-Irish husband) was the history of the Irish immigrants who began to come to Dover in droves starting in the early 1800's--many to work in the cotton mill in the center of town--and were ultimately instrumental in having the first Catholic church built in what had always been a mostly Protestant area.

I always thought the history of Dover's Irish-Catholic immigrants, whose numbers grew so exponentially by the mid-19th century that there was eventually an area of town known as "Dublin," would make a great backdrop for an historical novel. And thus was born Erin's Ring, my recently released YA Catholic novel, published by Bezalel Books in November of 2014. It has been a labor of love: a tribute to the town where my five sons grew up, to the church my family attends each Sunday for Mass, and to the brave, hardy, faith-filled, wonderful people who left the poverty of their beloved Emerald Isle to find better lives here in America.

Here are some images that helped to inspire me while I was writing about the Irish girls who worked at Dover's Cocheco Manufacturing Company in the 1800's.



Okay then, time to discuss.  Have you read Erin's Ring?  If not, does this post make you want to?  (Say yes!  Oh, say yes!)  Do you have an interesting family story of your own about immigrant ancestors--Irish or otherwise?  If so, do share.

16 comments:

  1. I have it on my calendar to read while I recover from surgery next week....and this makes me very excited to read Erin's Ring!!! I just love reading your blog!

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    1. I'm glad it'll be able to be a distraction when you're recovering! :)

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  2. My great-grandparents on my mom's side immigrated from Italy. All Catholic, of course. :) In my mom's generation, and in mine, not are all still Catholic, though all are Christian. I remember my grandfather's mother very well. She spoke English with a heavy Italian accent and absolutely loved cheese. Every time we went to visit her, she would serve crackers with a different brick of cheese, and my youngest sister called her "Grandma with the cheese." :) She had a pretty difficult life, never seeing her parents again once she left Italy as a young married woman, losing several of her children at young ages, and indeed not marrying her childhood sweetheart due to some societal pressures. It's a sad story really, but I have very fond memories of her

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    1. Tiffany, thanks for sharing this! What a great story. ("Grandma with cheese." That's the best! I hope to be remembered as "Grammy with cookies." :))

      My mother-in-law always used to say of her dad (the Irishman in the above photo): "Imagine--he left at 19 and his mother never saw him again!" As a doting mother of eight, this was inconceivable to her. He died relatively young and never got back to the old sod. I can't imagine what that would be like--leaving the only home I'd ever known and going across the ocean, and never going back.

      It sounds like your Italian grandmother's life would make a good novel--I'd love to know more about the sad story involving her childhood sweetheart. ;)

      Thanks for participating in my little book club. In your line of work, you've probably been a book club member or leader many times over; but this here is my first time. (Not really sure what I'm doing yet!)

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    2. Please don't misunderstand the "winky face" in my reply to your comment. (I stuck that in there to hint that I hope you write a novel one day!) It sounds like your grandmother suffered a great deal in her life, and I didn't mean to seem as if I was making light of that.

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    3. Thanks Laura! Hopefully someday we'll get a chance to chat in person over a glass of wine. :)

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  3. I have not read Erin's Ring yet, but I really want to. I actually wanted to before this post- but this reminds me I really need to buy it soon.

    I have actually spent the last few months writing the story of my grandmother's immigration to America from British Guyana. Her story is fascinating and inspiring and I want so much to preserve it for generations to come. Some of my other ancestors are Irish- maybe I'll work on preserving their stories next....

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    1. Kari, these stories sound fascinating! And I think it's so important to preserve them for the next generations. I wish I'd sat down and had my mother-in-law tell me everything she knew when she was alive. I think one of my husband's cousins did do that (she recorded her). Now I'm inspired to get all that information and write my mother-in-law's (and her parents') story.

      About Erin's Ring...I'm hopping over to your blog with a proposition for you. ;)

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  4. Hi Laura - My mom and I both enjoyed "Erin's Ring" and I found many family connections. I'm not sure if you ever met my grandmother, but when I read your book, I thought of her leaving the little farm in Co. Waterford and taking that boat to America all alone at 16 - what courage that must have taken! I treasure the stories that she told us and am sorry that my grandfather passed away when Mom was only 6 so we missed out on his stories. Dad's family also came from Ireland but settled in Western Mass and several of them, including my grandfather, worked on the B&M so I enjoyed seeing that particular rail line play a role in your story, as the passing trains shook the church!

    Now, my question for you: What sort of feedback have you received from young readers of your books? Do you have a sense of what ages are enjoying the books? The students from our parish elementary school attend morning Mass on Fridays and as they file into the church, I always wonder what they would think of "Finding Grace" and "Erin's Ring."

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    1. Sheila, so good to hear from you! I have enjoyed seeing pictures of your wonderful mom on Facebook (until recently, when I cut back on FB severely as a Lenten sacrifice). I just love her, and she's in my prayers.

      I did meet your grandmother. I remember talking to her in that breezeway in your house on Champlain Drive. She seemed so saintly (a trait her daughter inherited). I'll bet her stories were fascinating. And how neat that your grandfather worked on the B & M! If "Erin's Ring" had been a longer, more in-depth book, I would have done more research on the railroad. But their tracks are right near our church, St. Mary's, and the priest often has to pause when a train is passing noisily by.

      I haven't had a lot of direct feedback from young readers, but I know of a few who have really enjoyed both books. Right now, one of my Pearl nieces is reading "Erin's Ring" to her fifth-graders. I've actually had more feedback from adult readers, and they have had kind things to say about both books.

      "Finding Grace" definitely deals with some tougher subjects, and I think of it as a book for high-schoolers and up; but "Erin's Ring" is appropriate for younger readers--perhaps middle-schoolers and up. Although both novels are techinically tagged "Young Adult," I tried to write them in a way that adults would read them along with their kids.

      Thanks for joining the club! And give my love to your mother!

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  5. Do I have an interesting Irish tale- well I'm a fourth generation on my mother's maternal and paternal side. My g-grandfather was cousins with Michael Collins! Our daughter is off to Ireland next week for a few months!!

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    1. How exciting! I almost got to travel to Dublin with my husband last year, but it didn't work out. One of these days, I'd love to go. I'm sure your daughter will have a grand time.

      After I read your comment, I looked up Michael Collins (about whom I knew only the barest facts). I was tickled to see that he hailed from Clonakilty--which is the hometown I picked for Seamus Finnegan in "Erin's Ring." I wanted Seamus to be from Co. Cork, because that's where my husband's grandfather came from; so I looked for cities in Cork and settled on Clonakilty, because I thought it had a nice ring to it.

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  6. My paternal grandmother was born in Ireland (the home is still in the family to this day). She came here in the early 1930s to New York City to get work as a governess. By the mid-30s she was married and starting her own family in northeastern NJ.

    I grew up just outside Paterson, NJ, which was also a big mill town in the 19th/early 20th centuries. In fact, I lived right around the corner from the Botto House http://www.labormuseum.net/ which was declared a national historic landmark in 1974. I rode my bike to the event with my friends and listened to the speeches. I think that's what sparked my interest in learning about immigrants and that particular time period!

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    1. Hi Barb! I love all these Irish immigrant stories! This has been the best book club meeting yet!

      I went to the Botto House (Labor Museum) site after I read this--very interesting! Just the kind of place I would have loved to poke around as a young girl. (And who am I kidding? As an old girl, too.) How neat that you lived right around the corner from it.

      I, too, am so often drawn to stories about immigrants who passed through Ellis Island on their way to America and a better life. Also to WWII and the Holocaust...and to historical events in general, which is one of the reasons I wanted "Erin's Ring' to have that historical fiction component.

      I noticed in the Labor Museum bookstore that there was a book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, and it just so happens that I have been looking up info about that incident lately...

      Thanks so much for joining the club and sharing your stories. :)

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