The Mammy

Brendan O'Carroll

Agnes Browne is a widow with seven children. They live in The Jarro, a tenement neighborhood on the wrong side of Dublin in 1967. Every weekday morning she and her best friend Marion are up at five, down to the wholesalers, then set up their vegetable and fruit stands in the market. She watches her children and raises them the best she can in their circumstances. She is fiercely protective of those she loves.

Her children call her Mammy or Mam. Mark, the oldest, is 14. He helps with the family's finances and knows he is the man of the family now. Even so, he is entering puberty and is beginning to learn what a man needs to know. The only girl, Cathy, goes to the strict Catholic school. The youngest is 3 and goes to her mother's during the day while she is at the market.

Mammy is a strong Irish woman. She keeps on after her husband dies, holding her family together. She takes on the nuns when Cathy is wronged. She is there for Marion when the other woman's health suddenly fails. She avoids the flirtatious Frenchman who has set up a pizza (whatever that is) restaurant in The Jarro. And she loves the famous pop singer Cliff Richard.

Brendan O'Carroll has observed strong Irish women all his life. They are his inspiration for The Mammy. This novel gives the reader a humorous look at a hard life. Agnes doesn't see it as hard - it's just her life and she deals with it. O'Carroll brings the characters to life in both their speech and in the background.

This is a wonderful look at a lives that ignore the odds and keep right on going, taking what comes along. There isn't much book knowledge here, but people knowledge instead. The Mammy is a winning book.

Call It Sleep by Henry Roth