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MARY O'GRADY by Mary Lavin

MARY O'GRADY

By

Pub Date: Jan. 16th, 1949
Publisher: Little, Brown (A.M.P.)

By the author of At Sally Gap & Other Stories, and the more widely read The House In Clewe Street, this is again Irish in derivation, set in Dublin, and, running from about 1900 to the present, it concerns itself with the large family of Mary O'Grady from Tullamore. Mary, whose simplicity and loyalty make her a winning figure, has also considerable strength and steadiness. With her marriage to Tom, and the five children that follow, life takes on pleasant dimensions. But pending doom hangs over every happy family scene and tragedy beings to eat away at all of them. Tom dies of a heart attack; two of the girls- Ellie and Angie-who are almost engaged to two University students, Bart and Willie, all go up in a plane together and crash; Patrick goes off to America, returns insane after the crash of '29 and is sent to an institution; and her youngest Larry, who has turned against her, becomes a Priest while Rosie makes a bad marriage. Although overlong and occasionally dull, there is a basic simplicity of style and expression that makes this rewarding reading. This is not, however, essentially popular.