ALL SOULS REFLECTIVE ESSAY Essay

Michael Patrick Macdonald was bought up in Southies Old Colony housing project. He describes the way this area felt to the troubled yet keenly sharp observer he was even as a child. With radiant insight, he opens up a contradictory world, where residents are troubled by gangs and nuisance but refuse to admit any problems, remaining fiercely stanch to their community. MacDonald also introduces us to the unforgettable people who inhabit this proud neighborhood. We mate his m separate, Ma MacDonald, an accordion-playing, spiked-heel-wearing, indomitable mother to all honkie Bulger, the lord of Southie, mobster and father figure, protector and punisher and Michaels beloved siblings, nearly half of whom were doomed forever to drugs, murder, or suicide.By turns explosive and touching, all(a) Souls ultimately shares a powerful message of hope, renewal, and redemption. Macdonald eloquently describes us to us the importance of family, friends, look sharp and everything in between. All Souls is the written equivalent of an Irish wake where revelers jump and sing the dead persons praises. Michael Patrick MacDonald was in third social class when the riots broke out.The man ran from the crowd as people threw rocks at him, MacDonald writes. He was trying to get away, but there was nowhere to go. . . . Kill the common raccoon my neighbor shouted. That was Mollys mother, running to join the commotion. Mollys mother is a prime symbol of what MacDonald tries to explain about ply in Southie. She is despised, impoverished and barely surviving in a gentle housing project. By shouting Kill the nigger, she displays the only attribute that sets her higher up the blacks that she so hates.MacDonalds account is filled with vivid episodes of his chum Daveys horrific incarceration in Mass Mental and ultimate suicide of the time Helen took her older kids to the hospital, where her current lover was a patient, to beat him up after he denied he was the father of the child she wa s carrying of the murder of his brother Frankie by his compatriots after the police shot him in an armored-car robbery. But peradventure most shocking is the accusation that the FBI was paying Southies leading gangster, Whitey Bulger, as an informant although they knew he was the neighborhood kingpin.Within the closed world of the projects, there is a code of silence about the extent of termination and destruction around them. In certain ways, my group walkabout through capital of Massachusettss Chinatown did reflect what Macdonald wrote in his novel, not through the drugs,the gangs or personnel that existed during the time, but through the solidarity and compassion the residents feel for each other.Like Macdonalds mother, Ma who managed to raise ten children despite various abusive relationships and other difficulties of life the people of Chinatown and other Boston towns never seem to let the signs of the times affect their livelihood or wellbeing. No matter what cast of hards hips they encounter, the family unit always comes first, an admirable trait difficult to come by. MacDonalds conversational style whips readers in rage towards the unfairness of the uncontrollable situations, and makes them commodious for the type of tight-knit community that existed in South Boston decades ago. This is a powerful story that finally captures the essence of long-ignored Southie. As virgin York times put itThe book leavens tragedy with humor but preserves the heartrending detailsMLA All Souls A Family Story from Southie Michael Patrick Insert boot of put in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012 .Michael Patrick MacDonald All Souls A Family Story from Insert give of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012 .A Prayer for the Dead The New York Times recess News Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012 .A Prayer for the Dead The New York Times Breaking News Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012 .All Souls A F amily Story from Southie Michael Patrick Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012 .Johns Book Reviews All Souls University of California Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012 .