Map of Ireland

by Stephanie Grant

Starting her junior year of high school during Boston's tumultuous integration uprisings in 1974, misfit Ann Ahern idolizes her exotic African teacher and embarks on a personal journey that takes her through the fringes of the Black Power movement. 25,000 first printing.

Genres: Historical Fiction, LGBT, Fiction, Queer, Young Adult, Lesbian, Historical

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

There is more than one Stephanie Grant on Goodreads

Stephanie Grant’s first novel, The Passion of Alice, was published in 1995 by Houghton Mifflin, and was nominated for Britain’s Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and the Lambda Award for Best Lesbian Fiction. Map of Ireland, which was published by Scribner in March 2008, is a contemporary retelling of Huck Finn that places female sexuality and friendship at the center of one of our foundational myths about race.

Her writing has received numerous awards including the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, an Individual Artists Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Formerly Writer-in-Residence at Mount Holyoke College, she is currently Visiting Writer at the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University.

For the author of GCSE review guides, please refer to Stephanie Grant

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set during the desegregation of Boston's public schools, when buses sent white kids to "black" schools and black kids to "white" schools, Map of Ireland is the story of an Irish-American living in the very Irish neighbourhood of South Boston, who loves to set fires and whose colouring of red hair, white skin and freckles is called a "map of Ireland".

Ann Ahern is sixteen. It's 1974 and she observes with little opinion the white Catholic mothers throwing stones at buses of black children. She's more concerned with her own blossoming sexuality - she's only interested in girls - and the black exchange teacher at school, Mademoiselle Eugénie, who teaches French. She's from a family of five; her father has been gone for years. Life isn't easy, but above all Ann's filled with a yearning, as well as unsettled confusion.

When Mademoiselle Eugénie's car is set on fire by some white boys and she disappears from school life, Ann is worried. But when one of the two black girls on her basketball team, Rochelle, offers Ann the chance to see the French teacher she's so infatuated with, she leaps at the chance - and at the adventure and discovery that comes with it.

While it's a short novel at less than 200 pages, it reads long because it has so much to say - even though, upon reflection, not all that much really happens. It's Ann's commentary - on life, on white-black relations, on this moment in history that she barely understands, on her own urges and desires - that propels the novel. Perhaps it's Ann's incredibly real voice, but you feel, while reading this, that you've been swept back in time. It's gritty, it's sympathetic, and it's the closest you might be able to come, if you weren't around in the 70s or in America, to knowing what it must have been like during desegregation, especially how people thought at the time. The book doesn't pass judgement - it doesn't need to - but it doesn't shy away from "telling it like it is" (or was), as they say.

Ann is a great character - as one reviewer said (I like this quote): "Ann Ahern wants, literally, to climb out of her own skin, to be part of something larger than herself. This urgency fuels the novel and makes her unforgettable - unknowable, but unforgettable." (Los Angeles Times) I could never have said it as well as that, but it captures it perfectly.

It's harder to capture the style, Ann's voice, how she injects herself into every word. It's unpretentiously written, and finely crafted. I want to share a glimpse of it, so I've randomly picked a paragraph to quote:

"The Black hallway ran the length of the house. Beyond the living room, were two doors. I figured, maybe, the Black bedrooms. I crept along. I felt inexplicably sad. In ninth grade, when I got in trouble for tonguing Laura Miskinis in the ear, the headmaster had called me a pervert. I knew then, he had the wrong word. Perverse means twisted. What I'd done was simple, straightforward: a tongue, an ear, a current of feeling. What I was doing now, in Mademoiselle Eugénie's house, was perverse. Sneaking around. A lone White in a Black house. Trespassing."

If you're interested in black history - especially African-American history - then Map of Ireland should definitely be on your reading list. This is also a great work of lesbian fiction, and even though it's not marketed as YA it would be a great teen read as well.

[NV · Rating 1 out of 5]

Setting 1974. Copyright 2008. This book did not need to be written.

I hate this book.

It’s extremely offensive and racially insensitive. I read the acknowledgments, did this author consult any black people or any non-white resources? Her portrayal of black people is abysmal & myopic. The MC is a tragic case of white savior complex wrapped in white privilege and selfishness and filled with excuses. This book didn’t need to be written. It’s just the author’s excuse to be racist and ignorant under the guise of “historical fiction.” Her heart probably skipped a beat every time she got to use the “n-word.” Every time she got to peg Jean as “one of those blacks.” Every time the MC, Ann Ahern, described Rochelle and used “black” as a modifier to depict the disgusting fetishization of black bodies - “black belly,” “little black breasts,” “that black skin,” “that black smell,” etc.

Furthermore, this didn’t need to be written because the author drops the plot in favor of her fetishization. It has very little to do with busing in Southie. Ann Ahern is obsessed with her new black French teacher and then suddenly she isn’t. She’s obsessed with Rochelle and the whole story about Jean becomes a side story and then Jean is gone. Ann gets so in her feelings that the black women don’t acquiesce to her, she burns their house down and gets them in trouble with the police. She refuses to repent in church or seek forgiveness and still reaches out to Rochelle who had to relocate as a result of Ann’s pyrotechnics and is mad Rochelle won’t give in. There has to be something wrong with those blacks for their subgroup and not wanting to forgive Ann, of course. Ugh. They spent all that time driving to The Cape and peeking into black lives and Ann didn’t develop as a person. The plot didn’t come to a close. It’s just some story about a whiny white girl not getting her way set in 1974 so she can use the “n-word.”

[MRM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Map of Ireland is a slender and engaging (I read the whole thing on an intercity bus ride) work about a queer teenager who falls in adoration with her Black French teacher during the first year of busing, 1974, in South Boston. The French teacher is not what she seems to be, and the general confusion and animosity in their part of the city lead to events beyond what happens in the usual coming-of-age tale.

There is a lot of good writing here, including a strangely romantic and erotic encounter and some pointed and complex characterizations (especially of Ann's mother). But I was sorry about the ending. Ann proves that she can't (yet?) rise above the influence of her immediate community, even though her lesbianism has cast her out of its rough embrace. I was disappointed with the book itself after reading through Ann's final decisions and actions, but on reflection I think it was admirable of the author to choose a somewhat unusual perspective and denouement for her story. Ann at the end of the book is just as clueless about her role -- both symbolic and specific -- in a racially divided and changing society. Although she is herself from an insular ethnic community that inspires both fear and fascination, she can't comprehend why there might be a movement for Black separatism, much less why anyone would take part in struggles that have nothing to do with their own people. And while she's the center of her story, and, by extension, the reader's, she can't see that she's not actually the story here. As one character scolds her, "White people were always asking Black people to bear witness to their lives, to their humanity...[I]t was the oldest story in the universe, the oldest story in the whole swirling galaxy."

But I couldn't help imagining that this isn't the ultimate that Ann will be -- she's not even 18 and still has a whole life in front of her, and it's clear she will be on her own. The jacket copy makes a sentimental stab at having Ann "[embark] on a journey that leads her...to the truth about herself." If the publisher is right, it's a pretty depressing truth. Let's hope not.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Painful, cleanly written story of a 16-year-old Irish-American kid from Southie, and her inner and outer struggles in 1974 Boston against the people her people fear, and her people themselves. She smacks into the discomfort of deeply inculturated racism as it seeps into her home life and her attempts to understand and realize her own unspooling sexuality. Cliche free, no easy answers, beautifully written.

(Full disclosure: I know the author, who also wrote The Passion of Alice.)

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away.

[Simona · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yikes.
While there were some deep philosophical and poetic moments scattered throughout this novel, overall it struck me as failing to land in meaningful commentary. The line between representing the authenticity of a historical moment and re-entrenching in myopic racial representations was too blurred for me. The narrator is a realistic if not frustrating adolescent, self centered and trying to come to terms with her sexuality and her place in the world.

Honestly, I wanted more critical analysis and less adolescence angst. I wanted more depth to the characters and more nuanced history of desegregation and less 'Magical Negro' type tropes.

I enjoyed all the Boston-area references though!

[KJ Velz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ending was entirely unsatisfying, because it was not at all what I wanted.

But it was realistic. More than that, it's what would have happened in this imperfect world. Sometimes, the protagonist does not learn her lesson in the course of 197 pages, but she might get a little bit closer to understanding. Just the tiniest bit.

Ann Ahearn is a frustrating protagonist - she is crafted perfectly to represent the racist Irish Catholic of 1970s Boston. As an Irish Catholic Bostonian in the 2010s, I saw so much of myself and my community in Ann, especially our most prominent flaws that are rarely recognized.

Map of Ireland was an excellent exploration of busing and desegregation in the North, where racism was supposedly solved long before Martin Luther King, Jr. Anyone who has lived in Boston knows that's not true. And this book is a testament to what people experienced in the 70s in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and what many continue to experience in our imperfect community of racists and bigots. More than anything, this book frustrated me, because the character of Ann Ahearn was real. Her actions - though cowardly - were exactly what so many Bostonians would have done and did.

The book was true. In so many ways. And the writing? What golden nuggets there were. And, of course, a queer character? Thank God. I need more of those in my historical fiction.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It will frustrate you. It will bother you. It will make you want to dive into its pages and explain racism to Ann Ahearn. But if you are white and you are from Boston and you want to know the tiniest sliver of history about our Town and race relations, then this is the book for you. If you like queer historical fiction, then this is for you. If you want to understand the inner-workings of a racist sixteen year old lesbian, then this is for you.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephanie Grant has created a flawed and quite believable character in Ann Ahern whose world of 1974 South Boston erupts when black students begin to be bused in from neighboring predominantly Black area of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. Ann has always been an outsider in her own community. Having acknowledged her lesbianism, she is ostracized and beat up on a regular basis by classmates and even her older brother. Through all of this somehow her Irish Catholic mother has never learned about her sexual identity even though everyone is Southie knows everyone else's business. Ann becomes even more of an outsider when she develops a crush on her new French teacher, Mademoiselle Eugenie an exchange teacher from France who is of African descent. When Ann and a black classmate take an unauthorized road trip to see Mademoiselle Eugenie who is hiding out with friends on Cape Cod after being forced by fanatical Southie boys to witness the torching of her car, Ann learns things about herself that make her both more comfortable in her skin and extremely uncomfortable. What kind of a stand can she take when to rat someone out she will be completely ostracized from the only community she knows and if she doesn't speak up, is she just as bad as the boy who struck the match? There are no easy answers in this story which makes it both genuine and uncomfortable. Grant's work is a quick read but leaves the reader with much to ponder.

[Lindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ann Ahern is 16 and living in South Boston. Her pale skin, blue eyes, red hair and freckles are as clear an indication of her Irish heritage as a map of Ireland. Ann explains how she came to be serving a 20-month sentence for burning down the house of a friend. It happens when she was only just beginning to learn about the fires of passion; she gets a crush on her Senegalese French teacher, Madmoiselle Eugenie, and falls in love with Rochelle, a Black teammate on her basketball team.

The fact that Ann is romantically interested in her own sex is not such a big thing for her, because she has been attracted to girls for a long time, but the colour barrier is a big one. 1974 marks the first year of forced integration of schools through bussing. Ann's mother is one of the women kneeling with rosaries in front of the busses, praying that the Black students will go back to their own neighbourhood. Parents throw rocks at busses containing young students. A group of boys lights Madmoiselle Eugenie's car on fire.

This is a short, gripping novel about coming-of-age in a complex situation. It has been marketed as an adult novel, yet has very much of a YA feel to it. Grade 9 and up.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Map of Ireland is a very slim volume concerning race relations in the 1970′s. That’s the simple overarching theme, but of course it is all much more complex than that. You have a tom-boy lesbian who is struggling with her sexuality, her pyromania, and her fascination with black people (she is white). Of course all kinds of tension are present and our heroine Ann just kind of goes for it.

Ann grabs on to life whenever the opportunity presents itself. She’s Irish-American and lives in Boston, but she has dreams to go places and do things with her life. Her pyromania is really just an expression of her repression and her inability to effectively connect with anyone. Of course her setting fires to things doesn’t do much to make her more likeable.

Stephanie Grant really puts it all out there. She makes some brave choices and Ann is a fully realised character. Unfortunately, we don’t really get a lot of meat on the rest of them. I’m not saying that they are undeveloped, but I felt that they were more just there to move the story along and not full characters in Ann’s world.

*** = glad I read it, I enjoyed it

[Kathryn Bundy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are things I really like about this book --- its honesty, grittiness, the consistent voice of a questioning, confused teenager. There are other things that I had trouble with --- cultural assumptions not shared with the reader, some flat, unavailable characters, the cluelessness of the main character at times when it would seem she should have been learning or observing more keenly.

I think what struck me most was the underlying theme of white privilege. That speaks to the cluelessness, so I'm going to assume the author was going for that characteristic. She was the perfect example of the "fish swimming in water" analogy; I spent most of the book wanting to slap her around. But then I would remember that she's only 16 and has been immersed in the culture of South Boston all her life, so in spite of her outsider position from being a lesbian, she still wasn't able to generalize that experience to the issue of race.

There were gems buried in this book. Every so often I had to reread a sentence or a paragraph because it struck me so forcefully. Overall, I'm glad I read it, but I sure don't want to meet any of these characters in real life!

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Boston in the early 70s, this is the story of a city torn apart by racial hatred exasperated by newly introduced school desegregation, and of a white teen struggling with racism, her sexuality, her crush on her Senegalese French teacher, and her sexual initiation with one of the black girls on her basketball team.

Ann wants to think that she can at least be friends with her teammate, if not girlfriends, but an episode of racial violence directed at her French teacher, in which she could name the assailants but refuses to do so out of a sense of ethics which prevent her from doing so, causes an irreparable rift between them.

The details of time and place, as well as the ethical and emotional struggles of Ann all ring true.

[Mina Silberberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both a road trip story that will keep you turning the pages and a profound commentary on race in the United States. Set in 1974 and published in 2008, this book tells us much that we need to understand about the current moment. While compassionate, it refuses to settle for the feel-good moments that some readers might want, choosing instead to face the realities of American racism.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is decent coming of age novel set in south Boston in 1974. It has more YA than adult appeal, I think, and deals with the topics class, race, and sexuality in
(somewhat) interesting and accessible ways.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written. Compelling story. But why? Why does Stephanie Grant need to write this story about race, set in the 70s? Why is she telling a story about racism without adding nuance/perspective 40 years later?

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was uncomfortable to read but that's the point. told from the POV from an Irish American teen girl struggling with her sexuality whose ideas about race are yikes ! obviously that's the view of those around her so why would she know different. as she wrestles with having her first black classmates ever and the vitriolic attitudes of those around her, she does so much that is awful and fails a lot, making the lives of the black characters around her much much worse. which again is the point I think.

[Carolyn Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coming out story of a high school girl in South Boston during busing crises.  Recommended by Marcia.  I found the writing a little flippant (but probaly suited for the targeted audience, i.e., teenagers) but the content was really well done.  A very thoughtful presentation of what it was like for the white children:  the confusin they faced

[Nance · Rating 2 out of 5]

The protagonist seems to be obsessed with blackness and everything she does is for herself no matter how many lives she ruins, how many people she hurts.

[Glitch]

Read this book in college, I'm curious to reread it eventually and see what I think over a decade later

[Paul Pessolano · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story, although fictional, is based kon the racial upheaval that took place in Boston in the 1970's. The story is built around a young Irish Catholic girl, Ann Ahern, who lives in South Boston. Ann is coming into her own as a young lady and is facing the many questions that all of us have faced during this period in our lives.

Although she is Catholic, she has come to the realization that she does not believe in a God, but maintains a facade for her mother. She is also faced with her own sexuality and feels that she is more attracted to girls than boys. All of this is happening during the social upheaval in the predominately poor Irish Catholic community in South Boston. Mothers are protesting the integration of the schools and teenagers are raising havoc in the streets.

Ann becomes infatuated with her French teacher, who is an exchange teacher from France and who is black. Ann, again, findws herself at another crossroads in her life when she realizes she seems to have more in common with the black community than in her "Southie" community.

Ann finds that her French teacher may be more than just a teacher and may have ties to the Black Panther organization. When the teacher has her car torched by young Irish gang members, Ann is approached to identify a gang member. When she refuses she is shunned by those who she thought were her friends.

The story is well told and explores the plight of these two different ethnic groups through the eyes of a young girl. A word of caution to the reader in that there is some sexual content to the story.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author spoke at the library where I work a couple of years back, which is when I bought the book (and she signed it). Her reading and discussion of the book were very compelling at the time, but then I just never got around to picking this up until now. It was a good, quick read; I liked the narrator character. This is the second book I've read in the past year or so that was set in South Boston during the 1970s and the busing/desegregation crisis in the schools, though this was fiction and the other one was a memoir. So it was interesting to see the parallels between the true story and this one -- in fact, because the other one was about real people, I had to stop several times during this book to remind myself that this was NOT a true story. Anyway, it offered an interesting perspective on that time period in Boston's history (and a neat, albeit brief, glimpse of Northeastern University in the '70s). The graphic lesbian love scene in one chapter, I maybe could have done without, though, and I found the book's ending somewhat unsatisfying. Still, it was worth reading and I'm glad I finally got around to it.

[Tori Rickard · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Maps of Ireland I found I enjoyed quite a few areas of her book where difficult topics were addressed, including some pointed and complex characterizations (especially of Ann's mother). But I was almost disappointed about the ending. Ann proves that she can't rise above the influence of her predominately white Irish community, even though her lesbianism has cast her out of its inner embrace. I was disappointed with the book itself after reading through Ann's final disheartening acts, but on reflection I think it was admirable of the author to choose a somewhat unusual perspective and denouement for her story. What bothers me the most about this book, Ann at the end of the book is just as clueless about her role both symbolic and specific in a racially divided and changing society, as she was in the beginning. Although she is herself from an insular ethnic community, It bothers me that she can't comprehend why there might be a movement for Black separatism, as if it is not in her scope of understanding, much less why anyone would take part in struggles that have nothing to do with their own immediate community.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent much of this book wincing at the assumptions and racism present in the situations the characters were enmeshed in. That sort of awkwardness and discomfort can be extremely appealing when much of our world is sugar-coated and pc-ified. For a first novel, I thought the author did an excellent job of having a main character who grew up, but not so much that I was disbelieving of everything she said and thought. At times I did wish it wasn't so much first person pov because I wonder if having the perspective of the black folks the white girl was interacting with would have helped to balance the book. Oh well. Maybe I just need to read more lit about 1970's bussing and desegregation.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmmm. Sometimes you read a book and then you're not quite sure what you think of it. I know I really liked this adult novel. And it sure tackles a lot of issues in its little package. Ann is an Irish girl growing up in the Boston slums in 1974. The schools just started busing and now there are blacks invading her basketball team, her faculty, and her mind. Ann is a lesbian, we learn that at the beginning, and she has quite the crush on her African French teacher. And then Rochelle, one of the new black girls on the team, actually starts passing her the ball on the court. And the team wins. But the novel is really about race. And being a white girl in a black world. And having black girls in a white school. And what it means that Ann considers everything black and white.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather dream-like, and, at times, nightmarish glimpse into a teen's head during the 1970s. I found it difficult to keep up with Ann's narration and often had to reread sentences in order for it to make sense. Likewise, all of the French phrases went right over my head, and I wish Ann had understood more of he language so we would be able to as well. Having said that, the writing was also lyrical and flowed wonderfully at other times.

I wouldn't call this a romance, but more the emotional, cultural, and physical journey Ann has, as a queer teenager in that time period. I really wanted to give her a shake for some of her decisions.....

All in all, a quick, intriguing read, but Ann's view made it a bit difficult to fully engage with her story.

[Jhoanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving little book (under 200 pages) about South Boston in the 1970s and what it means to not fit in. Set against the racial upheaval of that time period, when the first Black students were bused into Southie schools (and white students bused into Roxbury), Grant's first person narrative really gets you into the mind of Ann Ahern, a poor Irish-American student who likes girls (in the way that gets you beat up in this tough, working-class neighborhood) and has to play basketball with the first Black girls to ever attend her school. I went to high school outside of Boston, and Grant really captures the enormous divide between Blacks and whites, between have's and have not's.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved that it was set in 1970's South Boston, so I recognized landmarks, street names, and local history. It was chock-full of teenager stuff - angst, fighting with siblings and parents, trying to figure out your place in the social scene, racial and sexual identity development... so good. It was set during the first year of public school busing in Boston, and since I teach at a school where students from Boston are bussed in from K-12, I had a lot to reflect upon. Overall, I ate it up and finished it in record time - I highly recommend!

[Aileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at the reactions to bussing in S.Boston from the perspective of a Southie girl trying to make sense of the rampant racism she sees all around her. She is fascinated by her French teacher who is there on an exchange program. The school is shocked that this teacher's native home is Senegal - not quite what they expected for their white teaching staff. The narrator, Ann Ahern, is struggling within this community that shuns her for being a lesbian. Interesting characters in this brief but powerful book.

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books with a teenage narrator have an authentic voice because they are written the way most teens actually write--driven by energy, all over the place, and (in a good way) plain. Getting to the point, despite digressions. And some books with a teenage narrator have an authentic voice because they are crafted to express all the thoughts that we have but don't always express. They could be called "writerly" if that term lost its faintly musty tone. I like both kinds. Map of Ireland is of the latter category, and boy is it good.

[Lisa Houlihan]

Book Riot Read Harder challenge 2017-15: Read a YA or middle grade novel by an author who identifies as LGBTQ+.

Set against the conflict over busing to integrate schools in the mid '70s, the book throws all that over for its protagonist's individual struggle. Which I guess is exactly right for an adolescent, generally the most likely of anyone to be the center of the universe -- which I state well aware of the post in my own eye -- but it does mean that the author drops half the issue she started out with.