A Tattered Coat Upon a Stick

Rating:
Summary: An excellent first effort, but...
Review: I came across this book as I was searching for something to read about Sacco and Vanzetti. Being from Brockton, Mass., the opening setting for the book, I was immediately intrigued. (The story opens in the Brockton V.A., where my mother worked for some years.)
Mr. Brennan does a great job of spinning his story. His depiction of growing up Irish in early 20th Century Boston created a world I could easily envision. In a rather original twist, his hero's adventures in WWI were not about blood and glory, but ducking out of work and doing whatever it takes to avoid danger. His tales of bootlegging, of family tension, and of struggling with the decision to do the right thing, regardless of the cost... This was a fantastic read and I look forward to future efforts.
The only problem I had with the book is that Mr. Brennan stated he wrote it to fan the flames of public outcry to overturn the convictions of Sacco and Vanzetti. These two people do not appear in the book until it is half over. Having read the author's intent before buying the book, it kept nagging at the back of my mind until the characters finally appeared. The story focuses on Vanzetti, and presents a rather weak case for his innocence. The main arguement seems to be that Vanzetti was too nice, too self-educated and too peaceful a man to commit murder. Mr. Brennan presents his view that almost everyone wanted these men to be found guilty and ignored evidence that would have vindicated them. While this is certainly possible, it doesn't mean that Sacco and Vanzetti didn't do the crime. The potential evidence presented in the second half makes a weak arguement for reopening the case.
As I've said, it's a great read. It was not the story I expected, but it was definitely a story worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A prison guard's tale of Sacco Vanzetti -- and much more!
Review: The author, William Brennan, describes this first novel as a tale of the impact of the Sacco and Vanzetti case on an Irish immigrant enclave in Boston. He certainly does succeed in this. The book is much more than that though. The first-person narrator, Emmet Magawley, currently a patient in a Veterans Hospital is a small man with a crooked back, his voice thick with a lifetime of cigarette smoke, looking somewhat like a tattered coat upon a stick. He has a gift with words, words that gently take me by the hand and introduce me to his world, that of the Irish American neighborhoods in the early part of the 20th century.

Emmet's unusual for his time because he knows how to type. He's uses this skill as a clerk in General Pershing's office in France during The Great War as well as in his later job as a prison guard in the Massachusetts jail where Sacco and Vanzetti are held. Emmet is related to the Irish politicians who run his neighborhood and lives with his wife and children in a three-family house with her relatives where family meals come alive with the aroma of corned beef and cabbage as well as the loud bullying voice of his brother-in-law as the topics of the day are hotly debated. Prohibition brings changes to the neighborhood as Emmet earns extra income running liquor, and I loved his descriptions of being on a small boat as it bucked ocean waves to pick up cargo beyond the three-mile-limit at sea.

It is only when Emmet's character is fully developed and the reader completely identifies with him, that we are introduced to Sacco and Vanzetti inside the jail. There are seven years of trials and appeals and during this time we are right there with Emmet as his relationship with Bart Vanzetti develops and we discover a great range of opinions about the case from the members of his family. This was all fascinating. And at this point I discovered that I was not only reading a book about Emmet Magawley, I was having a history lesson too. At 244 pages, the book is a fast read, mostly because I just couldn't put it down. The words have a lyrical quality and the story kept me hooked from the beginning. I thank Mr. Brennan for writing this book and look forward to his future work. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A provocative and engaging novel
Review: William Brennan's A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick is a provocative and engaging novel dealing with the fallout from the historical Sacco and Vanzetti case, in which two men were convicted of murder and executed nearly 75 years prior to the present day. In A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick, a prison guard believes in the convicts' innocence and stands by them at the hour of their deaths, yet remains personally distraught over his failure to save them. Written in hope of garnering a movement to annul the Sacco and Vanzetti convictions, A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick is singularly powerful and moving reading.