Wolfe's History: A Family Story

Download or read book Wolfe's History: A Family Story written by Brendan Wolfe and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wolfe's History, by the author of Finding Bix (2017), wraps its arms around a single, sprawling Irish and American family. In an opening essay, Wolfe introduces a cast of larger-than-life characters-from an Old West barkeep and a Gold Rush pharmacist to an IRA fugitive and a British recruit whose loyalties are tested during the Easter Rising. Together these fast-talking, writerly cousins live intricate lives that move quickly between past and present-complete with periodic and sudden outbursts of violence. A man is set ablaze on the prairie. A Jesuit is tortured in Dublin Castle. In the author's sure hands, their stories are converted into something broader and more searching than just a single family's journey. He wonders what binds the Wolfes together in the first place and whether the experiences of his own immediate family subvert the connections he feels with his ancestors. A biographical dictionary and fifty pages of family trees complete this impressive volume.