The City Below

James Carroll

Paperback

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With The City Below, James Carroll brings the Boston of his million-copy bestseller Mortal Friends up to the present day, spanning three generations, in his most compelling novel yet. Raised on family loyalty, the Doyle brothers are inseparable as boys, overlooking the city from their Irish turf in Charlestown. But as they come of age in the 1960s, each forges new alliances of ambition - and of the heart and mind. Bold beyond his years, Nick soon aligns himself with the Italian mobsters who rule the choice rackets of the city. Terry, deferring to his mother's dream of the priesthood, goes off to Boston College, where a black classmate opens his eyes to a wider world. But the brothers' fates are tangled at every turn. As he campaigns for JFK, as he lays his ordination on the line in a dubious act of protest, as he deals himself into the real estate boom transforming the city, Terry still cannot escape his streetwise brother, his bonds to "the Town, " and his own past. Boston becomes the crucible for their rivalry as each man struggles to bend the city to his will - and to break free of the blood tie still holding him captive. Seamlessly blending story and history, James Carroll gives us our own tumultuous era in this tale of family bonds and ethnic violence, vows and betrayals, and political intrigue in the inner sanctums of both church and state. The novel's central character is Boston itself, with its turf wars, its tragic racism, the glow of the Kennedy era and the horror of the busing crisis, the overnight fortunes of the eighties, and the enduring Last Hurrah of statehouse politics. Gritty, suspenseful, and moving, The City Below is yet another triumph for James Carroll, each ofwhose novels "cuts closer to the heart of his own and the American experience" (Boston Globe).

Book Details

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Publish Date: Nov 11st, 1996
Pages: 432
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.68in - 5.55in - 1.17in - 1.18lb
EAN: 9780395825228
Categories: • Sagas• Literary• Religious - General

About the Author

Carroll, James: -

James Carroll was raised in Washington, D.C., and ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. He served as a chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. A distinguished scholar-
in-residence at Suffolk University, he is a columnist for the Boston Globe and a
regular contributor to the Daily Beast.

His critically admired books include Practicing Catholic, the National Book Award-winning An American Requiem, House of War, which won the first PEN/Galbraith Award, and the New York Times bestseller Constantine's Sword, now an acclaimed documentary.

Praise for this book

"A rich, seductive meld of characters real and fictive, of history and fancy." -- New York Times Book Review

"As a novelist-historian of our times, James Carroll might be compared to the British novelist Doris Lessing - his work has her range and intensity...Carroll has become one of the writers who shape our sense of ourselves." -- The Atlantic

"Carroll combines Boston's familiar turf and his staple historical personae--the Kennedys and Cardinal Cushing among them- -with a vibrant new cast of characters. The writing is dependable throughout (its strength being the dialogue), while the plotting offers spectacular twists, a breakneck pace, and a startling ending." -- Kirkus

"In The City Below, as in his earlier novels, James Carroll works the American counterparts to the precincts of Graham Greene. His characters engage with sexual, religious, and ethical dilemmas we pray not to face, in a Boston no other writer portrays with such scruple or power." -- Frederick Busch