An
amazing story told with painful yet refreshing honesty, March 9, 2002
Reviewer: Will Baron from Boxborough, MA
Devotees
of the Clancy Brothers music may be in for a bit of a disappointment
if they are expecting a neat and tidy, A to Z chronology of Liam's life.
For this account is not a "poor Irish kid rises to the top" story, but
rather an amazingly descriptive account of Liam's nervous childhood,
his less than devoted parenting and the countless faces who influenced
him as he struggled in a foreign land. As one breezes through the easy
to follow passages, it becomes clear the author has set out not to impress
the reader, although that wouldn't be hard for Clancy to do, but rather
to give and gain perspective about life, love and the music which we
all love. I highly recommend this book to anyone......
Interesting
and Enjoyable, March 14, 2002
Reviewer: Richard McCall from Oakland, CA
Anyone
who has ever heard the recording of "Peter Kagen and The Wind" which
Mr. Clancy recorded with Tommy Makem, or heard Mr. Clancy present the
poem "Pegasus" knows his unusual ability to involve the listener in
the story of a song, or in poetry written by others. For many performers
that would be enough. With this book Mr. Clancy proves his abilities
extend beyond that. His special way of presenting the series of stories
incorporated in this book makes reading a different experience - one
has only to open one's thinking, and allow the gentle energy of the
unfolding stories to keep the course as he leads the reader through
Ireland of the 30's, 40's and 50's. The style makes for easy reading
- almost as though someone were there reading it to you. He incorporates
much Irish history in some of these stories, yet there is nothing dry
about history with this style of presentation. A story from his childhood
or youth is being told, then, to establish for the reader a larger grasp
of understanding, he slightly opens for the reader a door to a more
distant past - perhaps a few hundred years. Stories of experiences.
Stories of family. Stories of friends. Then come the adventures in the
United States.
At rare times exposed to wealth extreme. At other times exposure to
the other extreme of the financial spectrum. There are stories of the
60's Greenwich Village. The characters who became friends. Friends,
many of whom later came to be regarded as icons of the time. We are
led through striving of work to provide sustenance; the fun of the singing
get-togethers; the evolving of what would become, with his brothers
Paddy and Tom, and Tommy Makem, a group well known in many parts of
the world.
This
is a book written in a style simple enough to include the depth presented.
It is the autobiography of the early years of a man. It is the work
of a poet. It is the first book in a long time I have felt I wanted
to buy as gifts for friends to assure they have the opportunity to experience
what it offers. It is a book for those curious about the 60's Greenwich
Village scene. It is a book for those interested in Irish history. It
is a book for those interested in music. It is a book for "Folkies."
It is a book for those interested in human nature and interaction. It
is a book about a boy developing, finding out who he is on his way to
becoming a man. It is a wonderful trip Mr. Clancy has allowed us to
share.
Beautifully
written and wonderfully spoken, 3/15/02 Reviewer: R.F.Burlinson from
Larchmont, NY
I
just finished listening to the audio version of "The Mountain of the
Women". It is beautifully written and the music of Liam's voice and
the feeling that he brings to recounting his memories of personal, cultural
and professional devlopment provides a spell-binding experience. I have
been a devotee of Liam's music for many years. I was often at The White
Horse back in the 60's when Liam, his brothers and Tommy Maken would
hold forth with song and story. This work opens up an entirely new understanding
of his background, his upbringing and the forces that shaped his life
and career. It is a treat to experience an Irishman's moving memoir
that depicts a life that was not founded on drink and poverty, but on
culture, beauty and a passion for his profession.
There's
no raconteur like an Irish raconteur, 3/16/02 Reviewer: Lloyd E. McLaughlin
from Greenbelt, MD
Life
experience, not so much reconstructed as double-distilled, is recaptured
in the telling of Liam Clancy's thrilling and insightful memoir. Here's
his hometown, Carrick-on-Suir, an almost mythically Irish hometown in
the backwaters of the Emerald Isle. Where careeneth a procession of
townsfolk both dotty and dour: Here's the town publican. There goes
a creepy-looking cluster of nuns. Hark the churchbell, tolling out the
Angelus, and oh, have a heartbreaking serving of tragedy along with
your tea. Most important of all, observe the morally upright Mammy Clancy
in action, pinning her hopes on her eleventh child: surely this shy
impressionable son is a priest in the making. The author's eye fondly
revisits family life in loving but not uncritical retrospect, the idealized
Irish family, thrown headlong into life's tough struggles.
An
idyllic setting, interrupted one day by the arrival of one world-weary
American heiress with a hidden agenda. She's determined to travel the
world collecting folk music with the young Liam as her assistant. But
can it be, she wants to snag him and possess him as her own--much as
Dido, the evil queen of Homeric legend, attempted to do to Ulysses?
And if so, could you blame her? This kid's a natural: a real Irish choirboy
with an old-world brogue and a penchant for reciting poetry. He obviously
needs seducing.
Ah,
Liam, me boy, you're in for a bumpy ride... or rather, a picaresque
romp from the footlights of backstage Dublin to the hollers of Appalachia,
on to Cambridge, Mass., and New York's zany, East Village arts "scene,"
where you'll meet everybody who's anybody. And, every once in a while,
right back home to Carrick again, trailing clouds of cultural alienation.
And great green gobs of maternal disapprobation.
There
are enough imbedded elements of Tom Jones that one could easily conclude
this has just got to be fiction. So it's well the author pinches us
awake, as social injustice, poverty, narrow-mind religious judgementalism,
moral hypocrisy and intellectual vapidity present themselves. Not that
any of that stops our hero.
As he describes becoming a force to be reckoned with-first on the stage,
and then in popular music-Liam Clancy is forthright about a few gaffs
and stumbles. The hardest to swallow-given the idealization of family
that serves as oxygen during his early life-is brief, bitter mention
of a daughter, the product of an early relationship, whom he largely
declined to be a father to. An included photograph of the author, posed
beside this beautiful child, is simply disturbing.
As the memoir ends, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are just about
to reach the inexplicable pinnacle of fame as accidental musicians.
A bit unsettled by the nutty East Village scene, our boys momentarily
return to the village of their roots-where the local townfolk haven't
changed a bit-they are, as ever, totally insane. Back they go to New
York.
The
reader senses the chronicle ahead. . . Fame is fleeting, the singing
group will eventually tire of life on the road, and, after all, to many
amps can you crank a pennywhistle before someone's sinus linings hit
a harmonic? One prays for Volume Two, wherein Liam, classical hero that
we know him to be, crowns life's journey with maturity and self-knowledge,
and expiates a life of fond transgressions by founding his own rollicking,
loving Celtic dynasty. Of course, Volume 2 will need to be as thoughtful,
resonant, funny and well-crafted as the present work, so that the reading
of Liam's life remains in keeping with the living of it.
These
Reviews Gathered From Amazon.com
