Rockin' the Bronx
Pitting the lilt of an Irish brogue against the jazzy rhythm of pimps and drug dealers in the Bronx of the early 1980s, Irish-American author and playwright Kirwan (Green Suede Shoes) begins this roman à clef with arresting musicality. Intending to find his girlfriend, Mary, and return with her to Ireland, narrator Sean straps a guitar to his back and heads to New York. Despite his punk pretensions, Sean finds himself woefully unequipped to handle the New World problems that quickly arise: Mary and her new friend Danny are moody and inaccessible, and the unrelenting poverty, drugs, and racial and political tension leave Sean seeking escape in a bottle. As his musical and romantic dreams fade, so does the hopeful vibrancy that had made things bearable. In Sean's struggle, Kirwan captures a traumatic American moment, when relative innocents were confronting the rising epidemics of crack and AIDS, as well as intractable urban poverty; unfortunately, he drags out Mary and Danny's mystery afflictions to grating effect. Still, Sean's sometimes-obtuse narration never fully loses the thumping, violent rhythm of its opening passages.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.