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Summary
Summary
EVERY FAMILY NEEDS A LEGEND. And every legend needs an origin story . Kitty's People is a biographical novel, the intimate portrait of Kitty Flanagan from her youth as the daughter of Irish immigrants, through her years as a tragedy-plagued young mother and businesswoman, to her rise as woman-in-charge-confident, organized, fierce, and supremely generous. Kitty is the author's grandmother and a role model for our times.
Her story lies at the heart of a multi-generational family saga , revealed in oral histories and archival research. Despite their talents and hard work, the Flanagans in America find themselves in an epic battle: the goals of prosperity and loving family life pitted against the forces of disease, organized crime, alcoholism, fires, a wicked stepmother, abortion, and cold-blooded murder. The Flanagan saga includes the Keville family, the Barrett family, and the Curran family-all energetic Irish Catholics striving to book their passage to the promised land.
What is the setting? The Midwest! The story moves quickly from Holy Angels parish on the southside of Chicago to the utopian community of Leclaire, Illinois, the company town of N.O. Nelson Manufacturing, celebrated in the 1894 New York World report by journalist Nellie Bly. The saga continues in St. Louis, in the northside neighborhoods around Holy Rosary Church and in the westside neighborhoods around the Easton Avenue business corridor.
How is this book a historical novel? The story begins during the Gilded Age, when the working class flirted with the ideas of socialism. Then, Kitty grows up to run the Barrett family grocery business. Selling meat and dry goods in a corner store locates the family at the heart of retail innovation in the early twentieth century. But World War I, the Spanish Flu pandemic, Prohibition, and the Great Depression generate a roller coaster of challenges to the grocery business. Agriculture and transportation throughout the Midwest also suffer the devastating effects of heat waves, pipe-exploding cold spells, and massive river floods.
Although the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair celebrates the dawn of twentieth-century scientific progress and technological innovation, the early decades still had no antibiotics, no clue how to manage diabetes, no resources outside of institutionalization for children with brain injuries, no effective birth control, and-despite women's suffrage-no patience for a woman taking charge of her own destiny.
Are there love stories as well? The romance between Moses Flanagan and Maggie Keville is where it all begins. The rules and expectations of Irish culture and the Catholic faith play large in the vignettes of romance throughout their extended family. The Flanagans' daughter Nellie defies the rules. Their daughter Kitty rewrites them.
It is easy to fall in love with Kitty Flanagan. Despite the times, despite her losses, she learns to carry on. She discovers how to keep her head in the game despite a world that keeps slinging trouble her way.
You know Kitty and her people. They are your ancestors, fleeing the Old Country for the promised land of America, hounded by death and disaster. Yet... here we are. They persisted. They endured. They found love and laughter. They are the salt of the earth.
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
A biographical novel combines a family history and an immense tapestry of oral histories, focusing on a beloved grandmother. In Chicago in November 1885, Maggie Keville meets Moses Flanagan in a streetcar on the way to work. Both are Irish immigrants in the American Midwest with hopes of a better future pinned on them by the families they left behind. Maggie and Moses are the parents of the main character, Kitty Flanagan, Barrett Price's grandmother. Kitty's beginnings are beautifully told in Maggie and Moses' love story before the protagonist takes center stage. Kitty is born in 1890 and lives through an era of great change: the turn of the 20th century, World War I, and the Depression. The period details in the novel are elaborate ("Sunday is unseasonably warm. Kitty decides to wear her plaid taffeta skirt with a frilly shirtwaist, a fitted bodice, and her high-top shoes with the medium heel. Her stylish felt chapeau sports a hatband with a couple of long pheasant feathers"). But the author never loses the narrative flair that comes with the convincing dialogue and characterizations she has imagined and woven together. It is a sweeping story covering a half century that has, at its core, a search for stability and a woman who desires nothing more than to keep her family safe and together. Perhaps most poignant is Kitty's relationship with her younger brother, Modie, who falls in with the wrong crowd, shedding a light on the criminal culture of early-20th-century Chicago and St. Louis. The tale is peppered with loss and heartbreak, but it also shines with joy and humor at times as well as spotlighting the lot of women in that era: in particular, issues surrounding reproductive health and abortion. Despite her strong connection to the main character, Barrett Price seldom slips into sentimentality. In the author's engaging story, Kitty is indisputably a three-dimensional hero, with both strengths and flaws that make her thoroughly realistic. A well-crafted family tale that will enthrall readers interested in the early 20th century. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
