THE RACE OF THE TIGER

by Alexander Cordell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 26, 1963

This is Jess O'Hara's story -- but it is also the tale of the potato famine in Ireland, and the flood of immigration that took the Irish to America- and hope. It is the story of disillusion, as industry at its most rapacious fed on the men who were in desperate need, found compensation- a pittance- cheaper than the prevention of crippling and death in the furnaces of the iron city, Pittsburgh. It is the story of the coming of steel -- of the Bessemer process that revolutionized the steel mills and made more millionaires, and threw more men and women on the streets. Jess was a cog in the wheel of so-called progress; ambition, ""the race of the tiger"", caught hold of him and his boyish idealism and courage and independence gave way to opportunism. His oldest brother was in the clutches of the Mollie Maguires- and tricked Jess into it up to a point; his second brother was a fighting revolutionary; his sister stayed clear of it- and made her place as a red-headed dancer of Irish jigs. And Jess forgot them all as he used tricks and magnetism for the women to rise to power and wealth. And then came a greater fall- and at the end, stripped, he is again working in the mills. But labor had won a round; the Pinkertons raised the white flag. Better history than story- uneven in the telling.

Pub Date: April 26, 1963

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1963

Categories: FICTION