- Paperback: 176 pages
- Publisher: Plume (April 30 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0452281032
- ISBN-13: 978-0452281035
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.7 x 1.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 222 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #71,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
It seems like there's no end to Irish tales depicting unhappy, squalid childhoods in crowded, working-class flats. While Brendan O'Carroll's The Mammy maintains many elements of the traditional genre--the saintly, overworked mother, the Catholic family with an enormous posse of children and any number of abusive alcoholic fathers--it's a somewhat cheerier vision of Irish youth than we've come to expect. The mammy in question, one Agnes Browne, has enough spunk to look after her brood of seven, run a fruit stand at the local open market, gossip viciously with her best friend Marion, and still daydream about dancing with a famous singer.
This is in large part due to the fact that her husband, Redser, who falls squarely into the above-mentioned category, has died--thanks to a careless driver--just before the novel's opening pages. Our first glimpse of the pragmatic, lovable Agnes comes as she's waiting in the social services office on the afternoon of his death, determined not to lose a penny of her widow's benefits as a result of dilly-dallying. She doesn't even have the necessary death certificate yet, but that's not nearly enough to slow down Agnes Brown: "No, love, he's definitely dead. Definitely," she says to the clerk, then, turning to her friend for backup, "Isn't he, Marion?" Marion, made from the same tough stock, agrees solemnly: "Absolutely. I know him years, and I've never seen him look so bad. Dead, definitely dead!" The scene is emblematic: Agnes knows how to fight, and she isn't afraid to do it. Her deadpan humor becomes a hallmark.
As for her children, they get into the usual trouble--fights, girl problems, and the like. But there are also some charming, unexpected episodes in the book. For example, Agnes's oldest child meets a Jewish man and performs small tasks for him on the Sabbath, which eventually leads to greater goods. Among other things, Mark learns about the Jewish faith, new knowledge he accepts with bemusement and some of his mother's innocence and good humor. Upon hearing that the man doesn't celebrate Christmas, he exclaims: "Will yeh go on outta that! How can yeh not believe in something when it's real?"
The book is not without its share of tragedy, but Agnes takes it all with aplomb. She's clearly the glue that binds her pack of youngsters together: "The rule in the Browne family was: 'You hit one, you hit seven.' Since March twenty-ninth and Redser's demise, little had changed in the Browne house. If anything, the house was less tense." The Mammy is a slight book--it tells the simple, fairly conventional tale of a single Irish family--but it makes up for its gaps with humanity, in the same way Agnes Browne makes up for what she and her children lack. --Melanie Rehak
From Publishers Weekly
In his first novel, Irish playwright and stand-up comedian O'Carroll mines the same material (Irish humor and gritty upbringing) as the novels that spawned the movies he's acted in: Roddy Doyle's The Van and the upcoming film version of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. A tribute to O'Carroll's mother, the narrative is set in the working-class Dublin of the 1960s, where Agnes Browne (the Mammy) works a fruit and vegetable stall with her best friend, Marion Monks, but dreams of dancing with suave singer Cliff Richard. And Agnes needs all the romance she can get as a sexually na?ve, newly widowed beauty raising seven kids on her own. Agnes helps her eldest son, Mark, negotiate puberty and search for a job, while defending her other children from sadistic nuns, gossipy neighbors, depression and each other. She also finds time to date the Frenchman who owns the local pizza parlor. When Marion is diagnosed with cancer, she and Agnes get as daring as their stations in life allow: Marion takes driving lessons and Agnes tries to buy a ticket to a Cliff Richard concert. By novel's end, each has made peace with her dreams. Like stand-up comics, the characters here are more clever and glib than ordinary people, but these Dubliners are also irresistibly charming as they face their daily scrapes and heartbreaks. Tales of working-class Irish life now fill bookshelves, but there's space aplenty for O'Carroll's sturdy contribution. (May) FYI: The Mammy launches a trilogy that will include future Plume titles The Chisellers and The Granny. Meanwhile, O'Carroll will appear in a film version of The Mammy starring Anjelica Huston.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
LIKE ALL GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, the interior of the public waiting room in the Department of Social Welfare was drab and uninviting. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
LIKE ALL GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, the interior of the public waiting room in the Department of Social Welfare was drab and uninviting. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, Funny, Funny,
This review is from: The Mammy (Paperback)
The humour of Brendan O'Carroll is unmatched. I found this book on a shelf while visiting my sister-in-law. It was a very dogged eared copy as she told me she often rereads it. After reading it I can see why. O'Carroll paints a very realistic picture how life must have been living in Dublin's "Jarro" during the 60's. I highly recommend it to everyone.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A bit o' the Irish for ye reading,
By CincinnatiPOV "Bibliophile" (Cincinnati, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Mammy (Paperback)
Legend has it that if you capture a leprechaun, he will bring you good luck. Brendan O'Carroll must have had the luck of the wee people with him when he wrote The Mammy, a truly hilarious book. O'Carroll, who acted in the film Angela's Ashes, wrote The Mammy as the first in an upcoming series of three. His debut novel hits its mark with every joke and captures the essence of working-class Ireland. The series centers on a widowed mother, Agnes Browne, and her seven children, all living in Dublin, Ireland in the 1960s. Her youngest son, a toddler, speaks little but repeats every curse word he hears. Her oldest son tries to seduce girls with licorice and finds himself plagued by a number of puberty-related problems. The Mammy opens with what could be a heartbreaking scene of loss and sorrow: the death of Browne's husband. But with apt amounts of Irish wit, O'Carroll turns the funeral scene into a hilarious escapade that leaves Browne cursing her late spouse. The funeral parties get backed up entering the cemetery, so Browne loses track of which coffin belongs to her husband. Without realizing it, she follows the wrong body and is surprised when she sees another woman crying by the gravesite. Without a second's thought, Browne assumes the grieving woman is her late husband's mistress and mutters "'Yeh dirty bastard" under her breath. Another comical scene ensues when Browne attacks a nun with a cucumber and ends up in court - all because of a pair of knickers. The tale itself is nearly as funny as when Browne has to explain it to the judge. Soon, her only daughter takes the stand and, with a little Irish luck, Browne wins the case. In The Mammy, Agnes Browne becomes an every-woman, the ultimate mother and friend. She manages her children (a wild brood), helps her friend through cancer and handles her husband's death with grace. And through O'Carroll's imaginative writing, just about everything Browne does is funny. In the end, the book itself becomes a little treasure lying at the end of an Irish rainbow.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Mammy,
By Mike Wall (East Lyme CT) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Mammy (Paperback)
The Browne family of Ireland is a big family one that has seven count them seven children six boys and one little girl. Than unexpectedly there father who they called Redser died. He left his wife now a widow behind with seven children and pretty much no money. In a way these brought these Browne kids together they would watch each others back they had a saying in the book "if you messed with one Browne you messed with seven". It also shows how the mother took the death of her husband. Because now not only did she have to raise seven kids on her own, she had to be the mother and the father to seven little children. The way I rate books is if the book is so good that it makes you never want to put it down. With this book I got that it was a great book one of the best I have ever read. In a rating of 1-5 with five being the best I would rate this book a four and a half, just is a great book and I would recommend this book to anyone who like a good book.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
