"Mammy" is what Irish children call their mothers and The Mammy is Agnes Browne--a widow struggling to raise seven children in a North Dublin neighborhood in the 1960s. Popular Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll chronicles the comic misadventures of this large and lively family with raw humor and great affection. Forced to be mother, father, and referee to her battling clan, the ever-resourceful Agnes Browne occasionally finds a spare moment to trade gossip and quips with her best pal Marion Monks (alias "The Kaiser") and even finds herself pursued by the amorous Frenchman who runs the local pizza parlor. Like the novels of Roddy Doyle, The Mammy features pitch-perfect dialogue, lightning wit, and a host of colorful characters. Earthy and exuberant, the novel brilliantly captures the brash energy and cheerful irreverence of working-class Irish life.
[from the back cover]
"Seven kids. One dead husband called "Redser." And not a chance that she'll be defeated. Not by Sister Magdalen, her daughter's tyrannical teacher. Not by the amorous overtures of the French proprietor of the local pizza parlour. Not by the medical crisis that threatens her best pal, Marion. Every morning at five, Agnes Browne leaves her tenement flat and sets up her produce stall on Moore Street, in the teeming heart of The Jarro--home to Dublin's dealers, dockers, draymen, and those on the dole. But to the fatherless Browne brood, Agnes is more than a beloved neighborhood character. She's just about everything there is ...
A #1 bestseller in Ireland The Mammy is Brendan O'Carrolls funny, tender, and moving portrait of working-class Dublin life in the sixties. The first novel in O Carroll's acclaimed Mrs. Browne trilogy, it signals the debut of an earthy and exuberant new voice in Irish literature."
All of the books in this series about the family life of Dublin's working class are in the Bookshare collection. Look for the prequel to the trilogy, The Young Wan, and book #2 The Chisellers and book #3, The Granny.
