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Rating: 
Summary: Fast-Paced Fun Read
Review: Fast-paced, often hilarious, this book is also gently thought-provoking. I was allowed to read a pre-publication copy while I was staying at Ma Johnson's Hotel in McCarthy Alaska. The author is astoundingly entertaining as the reader travels the globe in search of "all places McCarthy". Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Fast-Paced Fun Read
Review: Fast-paced, often hilarious, this book is also gently thought-provoking. I was allowed to read a pre-publication copy while I was staying at Ma Johnson's Hotel in McCarthy Alaska. The author is astoundingly entertaining as the reader travels the globe in search of "all places McCarthy". Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Irreverent, hilarious, and vastly entertaining
Review: My favorite travel essayist - until now - has been Bill Bryson of Iowa (NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY, A WALK IN THE WOODS). Sorry, Bill. Stand aside for Pete McCarthy.Author McCarthy was born in England of a Protestant English father and a Catholic Irish mother. This leads to a guilt-ridden, divided allegiance, especially when it's England vs. Ireland in football. However, in THE ROAD TO MCCARTHY, Pete's maternal side predominates as he takes us on an irreverent tour of Gibraltar, Tangiers, New York City, Tasmania, Montserrat, Montana and McCarthy, Alaska in search of far-flung evidence of Ireland and his clan's roots. Why such disparate destinations you might ask? Well, Tangiers is home to the quasi-official chief of Clan McCarthy. And Gibraltar is just on the other side of the strait, so why not drop in? The Big Apple hosts the world's biggest St. Patrick's Day Parade. Tasmania, off Australia's southeast corner, was the brutal island prison to which Irish separatists were sent in the mid-nineteenth century, including one Thomas Francis Meagher, who subsequently escaped to become a Union general in the American Civil War and, briefly, Governor of Montana, the present day home of the head of the North American Clan McCarthy Association. The Caribbean island of Montserrat, the southern half of which is closed off because of active vulcanism, is the British colony to which destitute Irish men and women were once sent as slaves. And isolated McCarthy, AL (population 20) was named for a rugged copper miner who drowned in a local river in 1910. Following the threads of Ireland and Clan McCarthy seems just an excuse as Pete regales the reader with observations about his immediate surroundings and the world in general. Like Bryson, his perspective filters through an offbeat sense of humor. But, while Bryson's is gentle and only slightly askew, McCarthy's is truly bent and with a sharper edge. For instance, when commenting on the current state of the British rail system: "Most stations aren't manned these days because it isn't cost-effective, so there's no one to collect the tickets, or the sick (i.e. vomit). Official policy is to rely on gradual dispersal by rook or magpie, unless they strike lucky and someone slips and mops it up with the back of their overcoat." He can also be charmingly self-deprecating, as when advised in Alaska as to the proper response if meeting an aggressive black bear (fight back) or a grizzly (play dead). "... it would be foolish not to consider what you would do if confronted by one; but try as I may, I can't see myself coming up with much besides the weeping and the incontinence." THE ROAD TO MCCARTHY is a compendium of laughs that I couldn't put down. Finally, in all places except Alaska, Pete discovers that one can watch reruns of the American comedy "Cheers" on the telly. This is good to know should I ever wash up onto the doorstep of a seedy Tangiers hotel.
Rating:
Summary: Stylish writing - witty observations - wonderfully strange
Review: Pete McCarthy has a wonderfully perverse view of the world with a keen eye for a locale and the ability to write it all down in a way that comes out delightfully funny. In this book he travels around the world looking for all things McCarthy and imbues an Irish hue to everything with a variety of brewed, distilled, and fermented beverages for flavoring. While his style seems off-hand and even happenstance, it is clear he takes time to dig into the history of the places he visits and is able to use that history as a way to move his narrative along and to propel his adventures. If you like travel writing - especially humorous travel writing - you will likely enjoy this book. Particularly if you view the world with an Irish bent to things. I think you will find this a fund way to spend a few hours on a fun vacation with a witty travel companion.
Rating:
Summary: Stylish writing - witty observations - wonderfully strange
Review: Pete McCarthy has a wonderfully perverse view of the world with a keen eye for a locale and the ability to write it all down in a way that comes out delightfully funny. In this book he travels around the world looking for all things McCarthy and imbues an Irish hue to everything with a variety of brewed, distilled, and fermented beverages for flavoring. While his style seems off-hand and even happenstance, it is clear he takes time to dig into the history of the places he visits and is able to use that history as a way to move his narrative along and to propel his adventures. If you like travel writing - especially humorous travel writing - you will likely enjoy this book. Particularly if you view the world with an Irish bent to things. I think you will find this a fund way to spend a few hours on a fun vacation with a witty travel companion.
Rating:
Summary: Very, very funny
Review: There's something about the Irish, isn't there? They seem able to poke fun at themselves as successfully as they are able to poke it at others. While Pete McCarthy is only half Irish, a percentage I'll bet he wishes he could change to at least ¾ Irish, you'd never know it by his writing. He sounds Irish to his ale and whiskey-drinking core. His style most reminds me of Bill Bryson; they both have a similar ability to stand aside and look at life and one's own place in it with an eye toward humor, compassion, and appreciation for the foibles of our human race.
In The Road to McCarthy, the author takes us with him on what amounts to a travelogue as he gallivants around the world in search of kinfolk and towns and villages that serendipitously share his name - and faith and begore, the lad does find himself in some oddball situations. In fact, I think his compass doesn't turn toward North as much as it turns toward Daffy.
Delightful addition to a shelf of whimsical, irreverent travel books.
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