Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans

by Thomas Lynch

Traces the author's numerous visits to the Ireland community where his grandfather lived one hundred years before, describing his relationships with local farmers, writers, clergypeople, and others and his observations on how the town and its people reflect the larger outside world. 30,000 first prinitng.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ireland, Memoir, Biography, Travel, Essays, Irish Literature

296 pages, Hardcover

First published June 6, 2005

About the author

Thomas Lynch has authored five collections of poetry, one of stories, and four books of essays, including National Book Award Finalist The Undertaking. He works as a funeral director in Milford, Michigan, and teaches at the Bear River Writer’s Conference.

Reviews

[Dem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Thomas Lynch's Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans. It was an entertaining and quite an interesting part memoir, part cultural study with the most amazing book cover I have seen in awhile.
I came across this little book while holidaying in County Cork this week and was totally intrigued by the cover scene and the title and didn't even read the blurb to be honest and was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed the Story and life of Tommy and Nora and their hardships and traditions.
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Take a walk around any of the lanes and boreens of rural Ireland and you will find many stone ruins of cottages and dwellings where stories of hard times and immigration are frequent and where the brother or sister left on the few acres of land to scratch out living while the remainder of the family took the boat to England or America, while there is sadness in these stories there are great yarns to be told and I for one still enjoy learning about these times and just spent a week in Cork driving around the Coastal areas and out to Whiddy Island to enjoy the scenery and learn about the past times of the Islanders.The first half of this book was a 5 star read for me as I loved the arrival of the young American boy and leaning about his ancestors and Tommy and Nora's story as they fought to hold onto their home and land. I loved the folklore of the area and many of the true stories were heartbreaking. The second half of the book while interesting does tend to dwell on religion and other matters which just didn't interest me as much.
Overall and interesting book and a great little find while browsing the bookshops of West Cork.
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[Alane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have an autographed copy of this and think I am the cat's meow because of it.

[LindaJ^ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book that is not sure what it wants to be - essay, memoir, travel, immigrant, culture. It has a bit of all these in it but for me it falls easiest into the category of essay. While some of these essays have a unifying them, some sort of wander. But I did not find the wandering off putting at all. I enjoyed finding out where Lynch's thoughts would next go. This book starts with a piece labeled "Prologue" and titled "Fit & Start" and it begins on page xv. But it is really the first essay. Then on page xxi is a piece labeled "Introduction" and called "The Ethnography of Everyday Life." This essay sets the tone for book. In it we learn what the author wanted this book to be and how 9/11 changed that: "The book I first imagined [something chatty and jaunty like a good night's talk. Something that would find its market among even a fraction of the forty=some=million Americans alive today who trace their place back to the thirty-two thousand-square-mile island in the sea at the westernmost point of Europe] was no longer possible. Just as our sense of safety here, protected by oceans and the globes' largest arsenal of weapons and resources, was forever shaken, irreparably damaged by the horrors of that day, so too was the sense that ethnicity is always and only quaint and benign. Lost too was the luxury of isolation and purposeful ignorance of the larger world of woes, a taste for which I'd acquired in my protected suburban youth and overindulged throughout my adulthood -- fattening, as Americans especially do, on our certainty that it will all be taken care of by whoever's in charge." (page xxxiv) And the tug between what the author originally wanted and how 9/11 changed that appears throughout the book. And that is not a bad thing.

My favorite essay in the book -- "Great Hatred, Little Room" -- best reflects, I think, how the author was affected by 9/11. The genesis of the essay is the author finding himself stuck in Chicago as a result of a storm that diverted his flight home to Detroit to Chicago. He writes of this desire to get home, his envy of those who have already secured a rebooking, and his interaction with a fellow traveler also waiting. Into that experience, perhaps triggered by the never-quiet news programs on the TVs in the airport, he weaves his thinking about the post-9/11 experience. One theme is how and why religious "beliefs" are used to justify beastly acts. This leads to a discussion of "otherness," or "[h]ow we separate ourselves from other human kinds." Lynch notes that "Religion is just one of the several easy ways for the blessed and elect to remain just that. The haves and the have-nots around the world maintain their status -- as victimizer and aggrieved -- on the narrowest of grounds of difference. Race, religion, tribe, caste, class, club, color, gender, sexual preference, denomination, sect, geography, and politics -- everything we are separates us from everyone else." (p. 195)

Lynch is an author and a poet whose livelihood is as a mortician. He's a baby boomer with adult children, divorced and remarried, who lives in a suburb of Detroit Michigan. He also inherited the family "homestead" in Moveen, County Clare, Ireland. His great grandfather left Moveen for America during the famine years and never returned. Lynch, however, returned in 1970 and developed a deep relationship with the remaining children of his great-grandfather's brother. Nora and Tommy were then in their seventies and the author in his 20's. The relationship that develops is woven through the essays in this book.

I see that my review, like the book, wanders from thought to thought. There is much more in this book, but this review is already longer than it needs to be. Just get a copy and wade in and see what strikes you. No need to rush through it. Take some time and reflect along with the author.

[Daniel Christensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another bookclub joint.
I’m still not sure what to make of it.
Bits were incredibly well-observed (particularly around the church), but I struggled with a lot of it. Less the lack of cohesiveness (I took the book as a love letter to Ireland, ancestry, poetry), more the author’s overplayed pseudo-Irish voice.
That said:
1) Still got a good conversation going at bookclub. I still love the hive-mind effect of getting people together.
2) I liked his point about ‘singing along until you find your own voice’.

[Molly Ewing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely set of essays that might variously be described as memoir, social commentary, and history. Feels a bit rushed at the end when Lynch is mightily striving to create a literary trajectory that rolls himself into the grand Irish literary tradition. A bit too much name dropping there, but the sections dealing with his own rural Clare relatives are loving and clear-eyed.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don't have to be Irish, or even American to enjoy this collection of essays, just human. I love Tom Lynch's voice, and his stories of how he came to be a part-time resident of Moveen, County Clare, even as he continues his life as a mid-western funeral director and writer.

[Brucie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fabulous essays on the human condition from the perspective of an Irish American writer who deals with death in families as a vocation.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Lynch is a poet and mortician from Milford, Michigan. As his surname might tip you off, he is also Irish-American. His ties to County Clare are strong and he has returned time and again to visit and sometimes to reside in his ancestral homeland. This book is a series of essays thematically linked by their connection to Ireland. Sometimes the connection is autobiographical, and Lynch spends a good bit of the book introducing the reader to his aunt Nora; sometimes the connection is literary, and Lynch drops quite a few names of poets and writers whose acquaintance he has made and by whom he has been inspired. At times sentimental, most of the themes dealt with in these pages will be familiar to those fond of things Hibernian, and the book was most interesting when the author related little bits of himself that shine through in the form of jokes, favorite poems, and anecdotes (his meeting the actor Ralph Fiennes is particularly amusing). For those looking for an introduction to all things Irish, this is not a bad primer, though there are stronger ones.

[Chrisinny · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author also wrote The Undertaking- which is a favorite of mine. This one tells further stories from the author's life and of his Irish relations. Likable enough, and with a wonderful turn of phrase, the books somehow lacked a focus or coherence. It was written just after 9/11 which the author indicated had influenced the book to be much more serious and shows more conflict- instead of the happy, come to Ireland/America originally envisioned. I liked it, but some paragraphs went on and on- the essays moved slowly.

[Clark Carr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrical, thoughtful, funny

Who doesn’t love the Irish? But there is so much more in Tom Lynch’s book of essays than Irish (and Irish poets!) A searing indictment of rationalizations about Catholic Church scandals, a wondrous sidestep into Taos, New Mexico, of all places (the burial of a beloved priest). And many mugs or glasses or steins of beer and ail and stout. Besides being a fine poet , Lynch is a touching essayist. And not to be left out. a mortician and proud of it!

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love reading Thomas Lynch, however despite some great passages, this was my least favorite of his books so far. Still worth reading, but didn’t match the enjoyment I found in reading *The Undertaking* or *Bodies in Motion and at Rest*.

[Dong Luo · Rating 3 out of 5]

《上帝保佑姐妹们》一章里作者在前面章节里营造出的幽默诙谐与文笔流畅的爱尔兰返乡寻找历史同现实与未来结点的故事突然垮掉了，空留“美国白人男性中年天主教徒”指点江山空谈人生的臭气熏天的场景。避重就轻男性在社会历史发展过程中逐步掌权并压迫女性的事实，仅抓着女性的生育自治权自主兵役权家暴受害控诉率等方面说事，可见读了那么多第三代女权主义者的书籍加了全国女性协会依旧改变不了骨子里的气味。Germaine Greer要是知道你看了她的The Female Eunuch却在这书里放了��么多狗屁只会心疼出版社给你印书的那几百张纸和砍掉的树

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing from an author that has a deep commitment to the land of his ancestors. This book is filled with poetry, pathos and good Irish humor.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poets make wonderful writers. Loved the stories of Ireland and Nora

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book!

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Lynch has a heart that sees and a pen that sings.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

The road slopes downward to Moveen, past the fisherman’s cottage gone to ruins at Goleen, where a stream slips under the road, down the rock ledges into the sea. Smoke curls from P.J. Roche’s chimney, his mare and filly foal grazing in the field by Goleen. I make left at the bottom of the hill and back the narrow road past the fields and cattle and households of neighbors – Mahanys, Murrays, Keanes, McMahons, and Carmodys, Downses and Carmodys again. A mile from the sea, I’m at the gate I stood all those years ago for the first time, home.

Booking Passage was a selection for our Thursday book club – the author Thomas Lynch, an American poet with Irish ancestry, compiling a collection of essays about finding home in the land of his forefathers.

There were things I enjoyed very much about this book. Lynch is a fine writer. As evidenced above, his lovely descriptions of the Irish landscape and it’s people truly give you a sense of place. I loved the stories of his family, particularly how he met cousin Nora and her brother, and became the heir to his great-great grandfather’s home.

Each chapter is a theme within the larger journey of Lynch’s life, but sometimes these themes don’t connect easily. I get the feeling that the author is still struggling for definition and so takes the easy way out. For instance, he seems to struggle with his Catholicism. Without actually mentioning faith or God or his own beliefs, he brings it down the Priest abuse scandal and Magdalene houses. A true soul-searching would have involved so much more and so I’d rather he’d not included the passages altogether. It just seemed like a cop-out to me.

Lynch also announces his leftist politics as if they were absolute truths. Perhaps that is why he felt the need to side with the Catholic Church denouncers (while still wanting to keep the traditions of his Irish church culture). Everything needs to fit neatly into his secular identity. I found this annoying.

So, I give a thumbs up to half the book and a thumbs down to the other half. 2 1/2 stars.

[Madeline Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nostalgic for both Ireland and a time when a relationship with it that Lynch describes was possible, this book kept my attention through each of the essays and revved my eagerness to get back to the island nation.

Thomas Lynch's retelling of his go-between lives in Ireland and in his Irish-American community in the United States felt familiar in its themes but deeply new in the poetic and personal storytelling he presents his ideas through. The essays range in topics from immigration, the potato famine (or "starvation" as Lynch calls it), feminism, to the scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in recent decades. Certain essays were more compelling than others--the chapter on the Catholic Church told through stories about his priest, great-uncle was a personal favorite--but the collection was unfailing in its delivery of thought-provoking musings on the character of Ireland and Irish Americans in their relationship to the homeland.

Would recommend this book for any fans of Thomas Lynch or modern and contemporary Irish American history, but would suggest anyone interested in Lynch but not enthralled by this description to read The Undertaking instead.

[Padraic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a great Irish-American author is a little like being a great roof thatcher. Who the hell cares? I wouldn't be surprised if the insurance companies managed to pass legislation (as happened in Ireland and the UK) outlawing the trade.

So Tom Lynch will have to accept that few readers will find this book. It is a collection of essays, with the ups and downs that form suggests, on the Janus themes of emigration and exile, stasis and motion, heaving and hoing...you get the idea.

Because I am a freakishly pure 5th generation descendent of Irish ancestors all within 40 miles of one another, I found some of these essays profoundly moving. Then again, I'm a dying breed. Whether anyone else will enjoy this, I can't pretend to know.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lynch casts his keen poet’s eye over the history of the Irish at home and in America. As an Irish-American, as comfortable at his inherited cottage in Moveen, Ireland as he is in Milford, Michigan (where he is chief undertaker), Lynch is perfectly placed to muse on a legacy of two-way immigration. And yet his gorgeous prose is poetic enough to lift both memoir and chronicle well above the pitfalls of ‘one damned thing after another’: “If life is linear, our brief histories stretched between baptisms and burials, and the larger history tied to events that happen in a line: and then, and then, and then, and then…poetry is the thing that twists history and geography and memory free of such plodding.”

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Thomas Lynch's nonfiction in general, and I like the way he doesn't shy away from self-examination. This book is heavy on that self-examination, along with the examination of writing, travel, and the cultures that influenced his life the most profoundly. I found myself aching to write again as I read about his struggle to write and publish his work, and I'm seldom of that mind.

It's not as funny or humane as The Undertaking on the whole, though. It's an interesting read, but not poignant in the same ways as some of his earlier work.

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot to think about with Lynch's accounts of Irish history mixed with relatively current events. From every day life of his relatives in Moveen to the present problems of the Catholic faithful are addressed in this book. The final chapter on Irish poets seems to be rather self-indulgent though.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poet who is a funeral director -- or a funeral director who is a poet? I can see where this book would be hard going for some people but there are several amusing stories and much truth. I would like to know what things Lynch found difficult about living in Ireland. Or did the fact that he was going back and forth so much help?

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another loved book by this author. He talks of his life and times in Ireland and his philosophy on life. I liked his part about prejudice, using the term "otherness" when describing those who are discriminated against.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as satisying as I'd hoped it would be....Lynch has interesting insights into Irish/American culture but tends to wax a tad pedantic.

[Cor770 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a beautiful example of what is wrought when careful contemplation is combined with stellar writing.

[Bonnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trying to read only "Irish" in preparation for a family trip in June, I picked up this book. Ummmmm, don't spend money or time.

[Tammy Bolt-Werthem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book on my trip to Ireland in April 2011.

Great account of living between two countries. Love the fact that the author is in recovery and is both a poet and a mortician.

[Ken Shelton · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Tom Lynch book! I live Lynch and I live Ireland

[Linda Kauppi]

Lynch gives his reader much to think about in this collection of essays. I especially enjoyed the reflections on Ireland.