The Louise Noun Collection

Told from the vantage of a young woman who grows to maturity in a New England mill town in the 1920s, this novel portrays three generations of an Irish immigrant family in their urge both to retain their identity and to become Americans. The central character, Mary O™Connor, is the product of a family and a town divided by the conflicting values of the shanty" and "lace-curtain Irish. Brilliant and painful on the themes of alcoholism and social class, the novel includes unforgettable portraits of the love between grandfather and granddaughter, mother and children, sister and brother.