Irish Catholic Novel

I’ve written several self-published books, most dealing with sports nostalgia. But there is one exception. The novel below comes as close as anything to outlining what I believe in faith, politics, and even sports. I wrote it back in 2000, and it’s gone through a few iterations to get into its current form.

It captures an old-school Irish Catholic neighborhood in the immigration generation and its overarching theme is how materialism worked its way into the neighborhoods and ultimately set the stage for the cultural devastation we live through today.

The political combination of economic populism and social traditionalism that Corned Beef Catholicism focuses on today, then found its most comfortable haven in the Democratic Party, particularly on the local levels. The story also focuses on aspects of Catholic doctrine and life then fell by the wayside—namely, devotion to the Mother of Christ and difficult teachings on faith and moral doctrine.

And it wouldn’t be me, if we didn’t blend in some (actually a lot) of sports talk surrounding the Red Sox and Yankees, Notre Dame and Boston College, along with some high school football.

Titled Fulcrum to represent a time and place that was on the threshold of change, the book is available on Amazon in both print and electronic form. The link and the official description is below.

Fulcrum
A fictional neighborhood called Shamrock in the historic city of Boston is the setting for this American-Irish drama. Set in the immediate postwar period, Fulcrum portrays the lives of six teenagers who see their traditional neighborhood changing and wrestle to find a response that will be true to their roots and to their conscience. The tale is set against the backdrop of a classic Red Sox-Yankees pennant race, an old-fashioned urban mayoral campaign and the passion of football in autumn, all intertwined with the powerful presence, teaching and piety of the Catholic Church. Fulcrum is an epic blend of Field of Dreams, The Last Hurrah and The Bells of St. Mary’s all rolled up into one