The New York Times Book Review praised Brendan O'Carroll's first novel, The Mammy, as "Cheerful ... as unpretentious and satisfying as a home-cooked meal ... with a delicious dessert of an ending. " With the forthcoming second book in the trilogy, The Chisellers, and a movie about The Mammy (entitled Agnes Browne) on the horizon, the world is discovering O'Carroll's uniquely Irish blend of warmth and grittiness, comedy and pathos, as he elevates the lives of ordinary working-class Dublin people--and one extraordinary family--into tales that are small in size but epic in emotion. With the final installment, The Granny, our comedic and lovable heroine, Agnes Browne, has a French lover, six children in their twenties--including one in prison--and a wee grandchild of her own. But the world is spinning fast for Agnes--especially considering that her lover wants her to become "a sexual animal" and that her family's far-flung fortune is beyond her control. The members of the Browne family split up to make it in the world on their own until a tragedy brings the brood back together again--and love keeps them that way forever.
Raising a brood of unruly, high-spirited kids on her own didn't slow her down. Twenty years of eking out a living from her produce stall on Moore Street hasn't turned her into a quitter. Now, outside the maternity ward of Dublin's Rotunda Hospital, she has just heard the one word that stops her cold: Granny!
Who would have believed it? Only yesterday they were children themselves. Now they're having chisellers of their own, and for the first time in her life, Agnes Browne is feeling old. But with a daughter stuck in an unhappy marriage, a homesick son in London, another son headed for prison, and another grandchild on the way, it seems that the Browne clan needs their mammy more than ever. And Agnes is more than up for the challenge--until she's faced with a crisis of her own. Which will prove once and for all that nothing brings a family together like trouble. And nothing heals a family like love.
The complete Agnes Brown series is in the Bookshare collection. Look for the Prequel, The Young Wan, #1 The Mammy, and #2 The Chisellers.