The Falling Angels. An Irish Romance

London England: HarperCollins, 1999. Paperback. Small mark to edge. This book is an exuberant memoir of growing up London Irish, of having two identities and being caught between both. As a child, the author found the irishness of his parents' Battersea home bemusing. Here wan an enclave of Ireland's mystic west, transported to London's South Circular Road, where performance and after-dinner singing were mandatory, where the gossip and visitors were Irish, and where Catholic priests invaded the kitchen for tea, barm-brack and a waltz with his mother. It was a family holiday destination that meant, rain, dry-stone walls and blue bubble gum. it was a country that seemed to scatter its tribes of exiles across the globe, a place his mother had escaped from and his father only longed to return to. But as a teenager spellbound equally by Mick Jagger and images of Catholic martyrdom, John discovers an extended family in Galway he never knew existed. In this new world of Hoolies, spook-hunts and wakes, an ultimately through the death of his mother, he begins to understand the Irish Way of Life and Death and the heart of his Hibernian roots. 282 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Academic Literature.) . 1st Paperback Edition. Soft Cover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Paperback.