Ma, I've Got Meself Locked Up in the Mad House

Ma, I've Got Meself Locked Up in the Mad House
Author: Martha Long
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Dublin (Ireland)
ISBN: 9781780575414

Martha is now in her thirties. She has long shaken off the shackles of Jackser and her mother. Following a shotgun wedding at 18, she was separated and a single mother by 22. Now her daughter has left home to continue her studies in England and Martha is alone, in bad health, lonely and vulnerable.

Run, Lily, Run

Run, Lily, Run
Author: Martha Long
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2014-10-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1473510325

Lilly and Ceily Carney are only seven and twelve when their mother is cruelly taken from them, leaving them at the mercy of the Church and the authorities. This is a terrifying prospect in 1950s Dublin, where it is likely that the girls will end up in one of Ireland’s notorious Magdalen laundries – a fate they are determined to escape. When Father Flitters and the ‘Cruelty’ people arrive to take the children into care, Lilly and Ceily resist, and a riot breaks out. The girls are helped by kind Mister Mullins and his daughter Delia, but events lead to further tragedy and Lilly is left to fend for herself on the dangerous streets. Heartbroken, hungry and vulnerable, she looks like easy prey and it seems there will be no safe haven for her to find.

Ma, It's a Cold Aul Night an I'm Lookin for a Bed

Ma, It's a Cold Aul Night an I'm Lookin for a Bed
Author: Martha Long
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2015-04-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1609805992

The next installment of the Ma books—all bestsellers in Ireland and the UK—brings readers on the journey of Martha's first months of freedom in Dublin after leaving the convent where she spent her early adolescence. In the latest chapter of Martha Long's autobiographical series, Martha is for the first time on her own: discharged from the convent, she's finally 16, the age she'd long dreamed of as the doorway to her freedom from the whims of cruel adults. "Life is a bowl of cherries!" she reasons as she sets out to blend in with the middle classes and find love, acceptance, and respect therein. But this is also Dublin in the 1960s, where class aspirations ain't so easy for the likes of Martha. As one job and bedsit is found (and lost), another soon comes along with its own foibles and dangers . . . but with her signature spirit and true grit, Martha makes the best of every situation and manages to offer compassion even to the most downtrodden of characters who cross her path. Chance meetings with old friends from the convent and a fortuitous (yet brief) reunion with two of her brothers remind Martha of all she has experienced (and survived) and serves as the impetus for her to keep going . . . even when homelessness is all but certain. As with her previous books, Ma, It's a Cold Aul Night an I'm Lookin for a Bed has us cheering for Martha. This time she doesn't have any nuns or abusive stepfathers preventing her from making progress . . . but life does still get in the way, and that bowl of cherries sometimes proves to be a bit more sour than Martha would hope.

Out of the Dust (Scholastic Gold)

Out of the Dust (Scholastic Gold)
Author: Karen Hesse
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2012-09-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0545517125

Acclaimed author Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse explores the life of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo growing up in the dust bowls of Oklahoma. Out of the Dust joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ."A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While others flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.

I Know This Much Is True

I Know This Much Is True
Author: Wally Lamb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 884
Release: 1998-06-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780060391621

With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 188
Release: 1962
Genre: Castles
ISBN:

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.

Linked

Linked
Author: Gordon Korman
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1338629123

An unforgettable novel from the New York Times bestseller Gordon Korman Link, Michael, and Dana live in a quiet town. But it's woken up very quickly when someone sneaks into school and vandalizes it with a swastika. Nobody can believe it. How could such a symbol of hate end up in the middle of their school? Who would do such a thing? Because Michael was the first person to see it, he's the first suspect. Because Link is one of the most popular guys in school, everyone's looking to him to figure it out. And because Dana's the only Jewish girl in the whole town, everyone's treating her more like an outsider than ever. The mystery deepens as more swastikas begin to appear. Some students decide to fight back and start a project to bring people together instead of dividing them further. The closer Link, Michael, and Dana get to the truth, the more there is to face-not just the crimes of the present, but the crimes of the past. With Linked, Gordon Korman, the author of the acclaimed novel Restart, poses a mystery for all readers where the who did it? isn't nearly as important as the why?

Ma, Jackser's Dyin Alone

Ma, Jackser's Dyin Alone
Author: Martha Long
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-05-08
Genre: Adult child abuse victims
ISBN: 9781780576770

On hearing that Jackser, her childhood abuser, is seriously ill, Martha is elated, thinking that finally she will be able to watch him suffer. But in the hospital she sees a frightened, lonely old man and realises with a shock that he seems to regret his earlier actions. During her vigil, she is joined by Charlie, her little brother, then her ma and some of her other siblings. But as she sits with Jackser during his dying days, other memories come back to Martha - fleeting moments of concern and kindness, and a sense of closeness as he recalls his own tormented past in one of Ireland's industrial schools.

Room

Room
Author: Emma Donoghue
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 101
Release: 2017-05-07
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 178682177X

Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma has been locked inside a purpose built room in her captor's garden for seven years. Her five year old son, Jack, has no concept of the world outside and happily exists inside Room with the help of Ma's games and his vivid imagination where objects like Rug, Lamp and TV are his only friends. But for Ma the time has come to escape and face their biggest challenge to date: the world outside Room.