We are not ourselves : a novel

Resource Information

The work We are not ourselves : a novel represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in St. Catharines Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

We are not ourselves : a novel

Title remainder

a novel

Statement of responsibility

Matthew Thomas

Creator

• Thomas, Matthew, 1975-

Subject

• Historical fiction
• Ireland -- Emigration and immigration | History -- Fiction
• Irish Americans -- New York (State) | New York -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction
• Domestic fiction
• Queens (New York, N.Y.) -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction

Genre

• Fiction
• Historical fiction
• Domestic fiction

Language

eng

Summary

Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed. Eileen can't help but dream of a calmer life, in a better neighborhood. When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn't aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream. Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

813/.6

Index

no index present

Literary form

fiction