Say nothing : a true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Doubleday, 2019Description: pages cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780385521314
- 0385521316
- 9780307279286
- 0307279286
- 364.152/3092 23
- HV6574.G7 K44 2019
- TRU002000 | HIS018000
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Nonfiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | 364.1523 KEEFE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Checked out | 05/29/2024 | 50610021658583 | ||
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Large Print | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book - Large Print | Large.Print 364.1523 KEEFE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 2 | Available | 50610023814036 | |||
Standard Loan | Kellogg Library Adult Nonfiction | Kellogg Library | Book | 364.152 KEEFE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 50610021455055 | ||||
Standard Loan | Tensed DeSmet Library Adult Nonfiction | Tensed DeSmet Library | Book | 364.1523 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | In Processing | 50610018462098 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Empire of Pain-- a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions
"Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book--as finely paced as a novel--Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." -- New York Times Book Review
Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.
From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past-- Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.
Look for Patrick Radden Keefe's latest bestseller, Empire of Pain
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Prologue The Treasure Room (p. 1)
- Book 1 The Clear, Clean, Sheer Thing
- Chapter 1 An Abduction (p. 7)
- Chapter 2 Albert's Daughters (p. 10)
- Chapter 3 Evacuation (p. 24)
- Chapter 4 An Underground Army (p. 36)
- Chapter 5 St. Jude's Walk (p. 52)
- Chapter 6 The Dirty Dozen (p. 57)
- Chapter 7 The Little Brigadier (p. 67)
- Chapter 8 The Cracked Cup (p. 81)
- Chapter 9 Orphans (p. 95)
- Chapter 10 The Freds (p. 100)
- Book 2 Human Sacrifice
- Chapter 11 Close England! (p. 115)
- Chapter 12 The Belfast Ten (p. 131)
- Chapter 13 The Toy Salesman (p. 143)
- Chapter 14 The Ultimate Weapon (p. 148)
- Chapter 15 Captives (p. 162)
- Chapter 16 A Clockwork Doll (p. 176)
- Chapter 17 Field Day (p. 186)
- Chapter 18 The Bloody Envelope (p. 195)
- Chapter 19 Blue Ribbons (p. 209)
- Book 3 A Reckoning
- Chapter 20 A Secret Archive (p. 223)
- Chapter 21 On the Ledge (p. 234)
- Chapter 22 Touts (p. 244)
- Chapter 23 Bog Queen (p. 257)
- Chapter 24 An Entanglement of Lies (p. 267)
- Chapter 25 The Last Gun (p. 280)
- Chapter 26 The Mystery Radio (p. 292)
- Chapter 27 The Boston Tapes (p. 298)
- Chapter 28 Death by Misadventure (p. 310)
- Chapter 29 This Is the Past (p. 324)
- Chapter 30 The Unknown (p. 339)
- Acknowledgments (p. 351)
- A Note On Sources (p. 355)
- Notes (p. 357)
- Selected Bibliography (p. 423)
- Index (p. 429)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
In 1972, Jean McConville, single mother of ten, was believed to be an informant for the British army. For that reason, she was kidnapped by a group of masked IRA (Irish Republican Army) members and never heard from again. Three decades later, her remains were uncovered. Sandwiched in the decades in-between was the violent conflict in Northern Ireland commonly known as the Troubles. The story of McConville and the Troubles is told here by New Yorker staff writer Keefe (The Snakehead and Chatter). Shifting focus between the people involved in the IRA, such as Dolours Price, Gerry Adams, and Brendan Hughes, and McConville and her family, the author illustrates how interconnected Northern Ireland was during the conflict and how trauma, as well as silence about trauma, can destroy individuals, families, and communities. Drawing on controversial oral histories from Boston College as well as personal interviews, archival materials, affidavits, newspapers, memoirs, and a variety of other sources, Keefe blends threads of espionage, murder mystery, and political history into a single captivating narrative. VERDICT Keefe deftly turns a complicated and often dark subject into a riveting and informative page-turner that will engage readers of both true crime and popular history.-Timothy Berge, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
New Yorker staff writer Keefe (Snakehead) incorporates a real-life whodunit into a moving, accessible account of the violence that has afflicted Northern Ireland. The mystery concerns Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10, who was snatched from her Belfast home by an IRA gang in 1972. While Keefe touches on historical antecedents, his real starting point is the 1960s, when advocates of a unified Ireland attempted to emulate the nonviolent methods of the American civil rights movement. The path from peaceful protests to terrorist bombings is framed by the story of Dolours Price, who became involved as a teenager and went on to become a central figure in the IRA. While formal charges were never brought against republican leader Gerry Adams in McConville's murder, Keefe makes a persuasive case that McConville was killed at his order for being an informer to the British-and the author's dogged detective work enables him to plausibly name those who literally pulled the trigger. Tinged with immense sadness, this work never loses sight of the humanity of even those who committed horrible acts in support of what they believed in. Agent: Tina Bennett, WME. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
Keefe, a New Yorker staff writer, uses the abduction of a widow and mother of 10 children, ranging in age from 20 to 6, from their squalid Belfast apartment in 1972, as the entry point for a deep-diving history of the conflict in Northern Ireland and its immense aftershocks. The secrecy that fueled all aspects of the conflict is emphasized throughout, starting with the prologue, in which Keefe details how detectives from the Northern Ireland Police search the Boston College Library in 2013 for secret files relating to the murder of Jean McConville, the long-ago abducted woman. Keefe spent four years researching this book, traveling seven times to Northern Ireland and conducting more than 100 interviews. The book is an extensive and often wrenching view of this bloody patch of history, especially fascinating in the way Keefe shows how indoctrination worked at the family level. While he identifies it as narrative nonfiction, the writing here is more straight historical account, rather than an immersive exploration, but it will definitely draw those interested in the Irish ""Troubles.""--Connie Fletcher Copyright 2010 BooklistKirkus Book Review
Half a century after the fact, a cold case in Northern Ireland provides a frame for a deeply observed history of the Troubles.In 1972, though only 38, Jean McConville was the mother of 10, trying to raise them on a widow's pension in a cloud of depressiona walking tale of bad luck turned all the worse when she comforted a wounded British soldier, bringing the dreaded graffito "Brit lover" to her door. Not long after, masked guerrillas took her from her home in the Catholic ghetto of Belfast; three decades later, bones found on a remote beach were identified as hers. These events are rooted in centuries of discord, but, as New Yorker staff writer Keefe (The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream, 2009, etc.) recounts, the kidnapping and killing took place in the darkest days of the near civil war between Catholics and Protestants. Another Belfast graffito of the time read, "If you're not confused you don't know what's going on," and the author does an excellent job of keeping an exceedingly complicated storyline on track. At its heart is Gerry Adams, who eventually brokered the truce between warring factions while insisting that he was never a member of the IRA, whose fighters killed McConville. "Of course he was in the IRA," said an erstwhile comrade. "The British know it. The people on the street know it. The dogs know it on the street." Yet, as this unhappy story shows, one of the great sorrows of Northern Ireland is that naming murderers, even long after their crimes and even after their deaths, is sure to bring terrible things on a person even today. Keefe's reconstruction of events and the players involved is careful and assured. Adams himself doubtless won't be pleased with it, although his cause will probably prevail. As the author writes, "Adams will probably not live to see a united Ireland, but it seems that such a day will inevitably come"perhaps as an indirect, ironic result of Brexit.A harrowing story of politically motivated crime that could not have been better told. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE is a staff writer at The New Yorker , an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The Snakehead and Chatter . His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine , Slate , New York, and The New York Review of Books , among others and he is a frequent commentator on NPR, the BBC, and MSNBC. Patrick received the 2014 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, for his story "A Loaded Gun," was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2015 and 2016, and is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.There are no comments on this title.