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Title: Brendan Malone: The Last Fenian
Author: Marina J Neary
Narrator: Colin Grube
Format: Unabridged
Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-22-13
Publisher: All Things That Matter Press, Inc.
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
Based on true historical events, Brendan Malone: The Last Fenian is a folkloric satire examining the dark, destructive side of paternal love.
Roscommon, Ireland, 1910. A string of crop failures and botched rebellions had left the country a pitiful wasteland. Brendan Malone, a struggling Gaelic landlord and member of the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood, succumbs to a midlife flare-up of nationalism, while his two sons climb the academic Olympus at University College Dublin.
Dylan, primitive and compliant, clings to his overbearing father, while Hugh, anglicized beyond recognition, harbors his own ambitions that do not include liberating his native land.
"M.J. Neary has added a well-crafted and finely researched novel to the genre." (Kenneth Weene, author of Memoirs From The Asylum)
"Gripping read from beginning to end." (Gary Inbinder, author of Confessions of the Creature)
The author has brought a difficult period of Irish history to life through a combination of historical and fictional characters. (Jim Dougherty, President of The Wild Goose)
Members Reviews:
An Age-Old Conflict
What struck me as a reader first off is the high quality of writing in this story of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. MJ Neary has accomplished the very difficult challenge of telling a story reflective of actual history and keeping basic facts and events accurately, at the same time using her experienced writing skills to tell this story. Brendan Malone is the father figure strong and determined to free Ireland from Great Britain, and commands the center spotlight. My reaction, however, is that his sons maintain at least equally the central story. Dylan, Brendan's older son, chooses to follow his father's goal and becomes active with the IRB. The younger son, whose character is developed in sharp contrast to his brother's, reflects the academic and non-partisan attitude that will separate him from his family. With such a dynamic, tragedy is poised for the final piece of this lively story.
There is a dark mood which sets the atmosphere throughout the novel, giving the reader a sense of impending doom no matter what the central characters try to do to avoid such a conclusion. They have taken over from the author and there is no way out of the dilemma other than the tragedy that closes out the story.
Neary has a fine ear for dialogue, for plot, and for dynamic tension, all three elements combining to make Brendan Malone a story to be read and taken seriously. It is a story that reflects a moment in Irish history, but at the same time has the elements of ancient Greek tragedy and the forecast of our own times when we seem to be plunging into the darkness of an unknown future. Take and read.
Jean Rodenbough, author of Rachel's Children:Surviving the Second World War, All Things That Matter Press, 2010.
Brendan in Reivew
Long held strife against the English is the life blood that sustains Brendan Mallone. He eats, works, sleeps, breaths Irish nationalism and anti British sentiments. He expects his sons Dylan and Hugh to follow in his footsteps, he expects them to continue the fight for their native land. One son does as expected, but what of the other who does not? What of the son who defies his father and becomes a member of the English intellectual elite?
This is tale of heartbreak and tragedy in a country long soured by famined land, rotten potatoes, and endless booze.
