Whoredom In Kimmage: The Private Lives of Irish Women
by Rosemary Mahoney
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rosemary MahoneyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-08-01
ISBN: 0385474504
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of Whoredom In Kimmage: The Private Lives of Irish Women
Book Review: The truth incites controversy
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember reading about this book when it first came out. The writer stayed in this small Irish village, interacted with the people, and wrote such a revealing and accurate portrait of it that one or two of the village people who were unhappy with it claimed that she had made it all up Then, when that defense didn't work, they backtracked and switched their defense to: "Oh, well, yes, but we're not really like that. We were just putting her on and stringing her along. We were just performing." Interesting. If they were just putting her on, if it was all just a performance on their part, why should they have been angry when the book appeared and it accurately captured their "performance"?
Obviously they were angry because the picture she made of them is genuine. There was no performance. To think otherwise is ridiculous. This is exactly who the villagers were in 1991. I, too, lived in a small village in western Ireland. Funny and sad though they may be, the stories in this book are quite serious. Some of the men were obviously showing off, but that was sincere too. There aren't many writers more attuned to the complexities of human nature than Mahoney. When I read this book (Ive read it three times now) I was amazed by the accuracy of it, the truth of it, and the fairness of it. It's completely implausible--and even laughable--that an entire village could possibly be pulling the writer's leg for months on end. Whoever thinks these people were just performing and having the writer on doesn't know the Irish. More important, what exactly is it that these few naysayers here object to? Is there something wrong with the way the Irish live, the way they act? I don't think so. They are human, and those who try to say this book is not representative is basically denying the humor and verve and conversational genius of these village people. This book struck a nerve because it was one of the first to portray the Irish the way they are, rather than the way they have always perceived to be: as some fairyish, innocent, infantile and sickly sweet people.
Some of the readers here can't allow that this portrait is genuine because they don't like the picture it resulted in. But why don't they like it? Do they want the people of Ireland to be perfect, conventional, boring, and ordinary? Why be ashamed of this wonderful human reality? What is it in this picture that's so dramatic or bizarre or unbelievable that it would suggest that the people of this village were weaving some kind of fiction? Nothing. The telling fact about the truth of this book is the strength of feeling, humor, and poetic expression in the people. They are beautifully alive. This is the reality. Why say this portrait isn't who they really are? There's a fantastic spontaneity in them that, sadly, some would try to deny.
So many native Irish people have attested too the accuracy and sensitivity of this book, some of them among Ireland's best known writers. Attempts to deconstruct the portrait as untrue or inaccurate are cheap and offensive. I loved this book because I love Ireland and the Irish.
Summary of Whoredom In Kimmage: The Private Lives of Irish Women
Written with the art of a skilled fiction writer whose ear for Irish bluster is pitch-perfect, Whoredom in Kimmage tells the tale of contemporary Irish women through a series of brilliantly animated scences that take the reader from Dillon's tiny pub in rural Corofin to the heart of Dublin. This beguiling account of Irish life transcends that nation's small shores through the power of Mahoney's great storytelling gifts.Before the phenomena of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, and Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization, Rosemary Mahoney traveled to Ireland in response to the growing feeling that changes were taking place, and that those changes directly involved women. Her ideas are animated in brilliantly crafted scenes, taking the reader from Dillon's tiny pub in Corofin to a lesbian pub in Dublin, from a Legion of Mary meeting to a classroom full of boisterous schoolgirls determined to drive their teacher, S'ta Keatin', over the edge. Here, too, are scenes with Ireland's first woman president, Mary Robinson, and the country's preeminent woman poet, Eavan Boland. But most memorable, and perhaps most prescient of the recent enchantment with literature about the Emerald Isle, are Mahoney's pitch-perfect ear for Irish bluster and warmth, her eye for detail, and people so real and unforgettable you'd think they were having a cup of tea with you.
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