Reviews
The 13th Apostle
The first reviews are coming in. Many more to follow.
McEvoy takes us on a fast-paced journey through key events in Irish revolutionary history, from the Rising through the build-up of the tragic Civil War in the 1920s…The 13th Apostle is a fun, informative ride, and an alternative history not unlike Roddy Doyle’s A Star Called Henry. As young (and very real) Irish volunteer Vinny Byrne proclaims, once Eoin decide to join the 1916 rebellion: “It’s going to be a grand adventure.” The same could be said for Dermot McEvoy’s novel. – Tom Deignan, Irish America Magazine
http://irishamerica.com/2014/03/review-of-books-40/
Dermot McEvoy paints a gripping you-are-there portrait of revolutionary Ireland in The 13th Apostle. The job of rescuing a nation from its fate as an exploited colony was certain to be an epic task, and McEvoy’s expertly paced novel conjures the streets and characters with a historian’s keen eye…McEvoy…paints a portrait of the man in full, creating one of the most richly detailed character studies of Collins that I have ever read…There are many books about Collins, but few that understand his challenge and his accomplishments the way McEvoy’s The 13th Apostle does. Collins didn’t just change Irish history; he reinvented it and the nation’s trajectory through action and sheer force of mind. McEvoy knows this as few others do, and The 13th Apostle tells the tale.
—Cahir O’Doherty, Irish Voice
"The 13th Apostle is a compelling blow-by-blow account of the efforts Michael Collins led to bring independence to Ireland."
—Publishers Weekly Review:
“Anyone who’s ever doubted the truth of William Faulkner’s famous assertion that ‘the past is never dead—it’s not even past’ should read Dermot McEvoy’s The 13th Apostle. McEvoy gives us the story of the Irish War of Independence in all its vivid, intimate, squalid, intricate, heroic, and tragic immediacy. The dust and cobwebs are dispelled. Sepia turns Technicolor. In McEvoy’s hands, the past lives, breathes and walks among us. This is historical fiction of a rare and wonderful sort.”
—Peter Quinn, author of Banished Children of Eve.
The Little Green Book of IRISH WIDSOM
Theoretically it would be possible to reconstruct Ireland and the Irish from the genius of Joyce’s output but in The Little Green Book of Irish Wisdom writer and journalist Dermot McEvoy gives him a run for his money -
Top 10 ferocious Irish women quotes for world women's day.
—sourced by Dermot's The Little Green Book of IRISH WIDSOM
Our Lady of Greenwich Village
From Publishers Weekly
A guilt-ridden political consultant gets a boost from the Virgin Mary in McEvoy's raucous novel of New York. Staunch Catholic Irish-American Wolfe Tone O'Rourke, a likable enough but flawed 53-year-old campaign adviser, is saddled with shame over having failed RFK on the day of his assassination. Now, in 2000, the world-weary, hard-drinking O'Rourke is disgusted by family values congressman Jackie Swift, so after the Virgin Mary appears to O'Rourke in his dreams, he kicks off a campaign for Swift's seat under the banner of No More Bullshit. He's helped along by a sexy young black campaign manager who becomes his lover, and an infectious indignation. The race is knock-down vicious, and it gives McEvoy the chance to take some choice shots at politicians, religious leaders and the wussification of the city he clearly loves. It's about as New York as it gets. (Oct.)
From Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
"A raucous read, with cameos by real-life politicians, as well as lots of characters who more than resemble past and present politicos. This book should have a lot of New York and Washington insiders squirming, as they read closely. McEvoy portrays the modern day Village as a bastion with a rich past yet still filled with rogues. Anyone with an interest in the kind of big city political history they don't write up in textbooks should read Our Lady of Greenwich Village." ----Irish America
Loose leafs from the New Yorker Books Department
The Advent season seemed like a good time to get in touch with the writer Dermot McEvoy, whose new novel, “Our Lady of Greenwich Village” (Skyhorse), came out in October, just before the Presidential election. McEvoy’s hero, a political consultant named Wolfe Tone O’Rourke—who, like the author, is an Irishman transplanted to New York—is on the scene when this headline hits the newspaper: “MIRACOLO: BLESSED VIRGIN APPEARS TO GOPer.”
Q - What inspired you to use the miraculous vision?
A - My friend Howard Byrne told me of a kid in the Bronx during the Second World War who came home late from school once and was about to get a whuppin’ when he claimed ....Read More
From the Irish Times, October 4, 2008:
FICTION: Our Lady of Greenwich Village By Dermot McEvoy Skyhorse, 336pp. $24.95
This Lion's still got teeth
by GEORGE KIMBALL
DERMOT McEVOY seems to have this thing about ghosts and apparitions. In his 2002 novel, Terrible Angel , the shade of Michael Collins emerged from purgatory and materialised on the streets of contemporary New York, and in his latest, the blessed Virgin Mary appears, unbidden, to influence the outcome of a hard-fought campaign for a lower-Manhattan congressional seat waged by an Irish-born émigré, a political consultant-turned reform candidate named Wolfe Tone O'Rourke.
Subtitled A Novel of Church, State, Politics, and Kindred Spirits, Our Lady of Greenwich Village is all of that, but on another level it is a loving paean to yet another....Read More
Review by the NY Times
Our hero, to use the word loosely, is Wolfe Tone O'Rourke. He's as Irish and as rebellious as the 18th-century revolutionist whose name he bears, Theobald Wolfe Tone. You want Irish? O'Rourke speaks the language as well as he does English, befitting one who (like this novel's author) began life in Dublin and came to America as a lad. Lordy, the man even quotes Yeats during sex.
Too bad he's something of a mess, what with the booze and an occasional snort of white powder. Haunted by ghosts, O'Rourke is: Vietnam, where he was a Navy medic.... Read More
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TERRIBLE ANGEL
Product Description
An Irish hero seeks redemption on the streets of New York, seventy years after his death.
On August 22, 1922, Michael Collins was assassinated at Beal na mBlath in County Cork. The charismatic Collins was 31 years old and the leader of the Irish Free State. In the previous six years he had been busy: He fought in the 1916 Easter Rebellion, invented the IRA, financed the new Irish state, assassinated the entire British Secret Service in Dublin, and negotiated the treaty that drove the British out of twenty-six counties of Ireland for the first time in 700 years. Terrible Angel, Dermot McEvoy's suspenseful and lightning-paced romp through New York's streets, finds Collins 70 years after his bloody death desperately seeking to make amends for his violent life by completing one last worldly mission: springing a wrongly accused Irishman from the clutches of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the British MI-5, and a certain life sentence in a British jail. You'll meet a cast of characters who entertain, frighten, and amaze: Tommy Butler-a 275-pound bartender at Greenwich Village's famed Lion's Head saloon, who can tell a tale and handle a thug with equal ease. Earl Holder-a black retired detective first grade, NYPD, with a nose for intelligence and a passion for justice. Sadie Robinson-a homeless woman who becomes Collins's guide to a grimy underworld that few New Yorkers ever see. Naomi Ottinger-the sexy Village bartender who knows what she wants, and she wants Michael Collins. Quentin Quinney-a double-dealing detective in the NYPD's intelligence unit who's after Collins's head. Sir Ian Boxer-Clegg-chief of MI-5's Belfast Division, with a penchant for the more exotic things in life, be they fine wines, young boys, or fugitive Fenians.
Review by Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The great tradition of Irish-American literature welcomes a bright new light with this stunning first novel… McEvoy’s meticulous depictions of the city’s neighborhoods and characters reveal a deep knowledge and love of Gotham; the salty, witty dialogue expertly sparks the narrative as the pages surge toward their satisfying conclusion. Most impressive is the author’s rich portrayal of Collins, here neither saint nor devil but a flawed, good man struggling to do right without resorting to the ease of bloodshed. In Collins’s heartfelt, necessarily brief affair with a Jewish waitress, McEvoy captures the poignancy of human temporality; in this novel as a whole, he captures, in a voice as fresh as sea spray, the indomitable romance of the Irish spirit.
Forecast: Strong reviews, stirring cover art and blurbs from Frank McCourt, Pete Hamill and other luminaries are sure to bring significant attention to this novel. The story sings out for screen adaptation.”
Notable Comments
“You’re in for a slew of head-spinning plot twists and a delightful romp through Greenwich Village.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Terrible Angel is a novel so intriguing you’ll keep turning the pages.”
—Frank McCourt
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela’s Ashes
“McEvoy’s debut is an intriguing tapestry-part recollection of New York in 1914 (during an imagined visit of Collins to the city), part 20th-century Irish history, and part suspense novel.”
—Library Journal
“Terrible Angel is literally a marvelous novel, at once a metaphysical thriller, a fasten-your-seatbelts entertainment, and a fully realized work of the historical imagination. In its magic and its realism, no novel could be more Irish or more American.”
—Pete Hamill
Author, Tabloid City
“Only an Irishman would think of such a plot. Comes to life under the deft hand of Dermot McEvoy. His New York will haunt, entice and titillate for decades to come.”
—Christopher Nolan
Author, Under the Eye of the Clock
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year, 1987
“Original, funny, witty, and suspenseful.”
—Denis Hamill
New York Daily News
“Terrible Angel is witty, filled with keen observations, and thrilling. Seeing the American Irish and New York through the shrewd eyes of Michael Collins is a treat. It’s a great Irish story; it’s a great New York tale.”
—Terry Golway
Author, For the Cause of Liberty and Irish Rebel
“A pleasant and amusing debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews