5/19/2023 0 Comments Farragan's Retreat by Tom McHale![]() But I also can't really say that I liked or enjoyed it. It's well-done overall, if perhaps a little broad in its satire. It's an interesting book, but a rather brutal one. Catholicism is a hypocritical display or a quiet, heartfelt stranglehold. Some are terrible in a larger-than-life way - Anna sets up a shooting range in her basement because she's convinced that all the black men in Philadelphia are conspiring to rape her - and some in a quieter, sadder way. ![]() All of the characters are sort of terrible at heart. ![]() It's often a funny book, but it's also a darkly cynical and depressing one. When Arthur Farragan's son Simon dodges the draft, escapes to Canada, and writes an apology note to Ho Chi Min, Anna and Jim decide that the only course of action is to send Arthur up to Montreal to murder his only son. ![]() Older siblings Jim and Anna are virulently patriotic and virulently racist, and their children have, respectively, lost an arm and a life fighting overseas. ![]() Where they were quiet studies of families and marriages in an Irish-Catholic setting, Tom McHale's novel is filled with satire and absurdist humor and - spoiler alert - two major characters are abruptly blown up by two separate bombs.įarragan's Retreat follows a wealthy Irish-Catholic clan in Philadelphia in the context of the Vietnam War. This was a wild change of pace after the last two Irish-American novels I've read. Get this The Minneapolis Star page for free from Tuesday, Ma2, 1)7I 6B' FARRAGANS RETREAT McHales 2nd not up to Principato FARRAGANS RETREAT, by Tom McIIalo (Viking Press, 311. ![]()
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