The Graves Are Walking

How does one begin to give a star value to a book chronicling in vivid fashion one of the most horrific tragedies in human history? What I can say is that it certainly was detailed and written in clear language, but it was not pleasant reading, the author being unsparing of any of the nasty details that accompany starvation and pestilence. The "comic relief" came in the form of ironic anecdotes that were in reality devoid of humor. But anyone who picked up this book to read was looking for explanations not Irish wit. Kelly has done a fine job of explaining how the failure of one crop–the potato–was the catalyst for igniting a firestorm of devastation to the native people of Ireland. The system of land distribution, the religious and social bigotry of the times, and the greed of the empire-builders and merchants who stood to make a profit from the misery of the Irish peasantry, all exacerbated the devastation caused by a natural phenomenon, Pyhtophthora infestans, commonly known as potato blight. Although there were points in the reading of this book that I thought my heart could take no more, I am grateful that Kelly took the story further–to the mean streets of the New World. The fate of the Irish in America and Canada was little better than the poverty, disease, and ill-treatment that they had fled, but I, and millions of readers like me, know firsthand the difference a few generations can make. My daughter gave this book to me as a birthday gift with the promise of a visit to the Famine Museum on the campus of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, which I had been eager to see. Let me just say that after plowing through this book, I am no longer so eager to hightail it to Connecticut. Maybe after the grief subsides.