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Fantasy. Fiction. Literature. Mystery. HTML: A New York Times Notable Book and "thoroughly gripping" historical mystery: On a ship packed with Irish immigrants, one passenger is a killer (People). In the bitter winter of 1847, leaving an Ireland torn by famine and injustice, the Star of the Sea sets sail for New York. On board are hundreds of refugees, some of them optimistic, many more of them desperate. Among them are a maid with a devastating secret, the bankrupt Lord Merridith accompanied by his wife and children�??and a killer stalking the decks, hungry for the vengeance that will bring absolution. This journey will see many lives end, while others begin anew. Passionate loves are tenderly recalled, shirked responsibilities regretted too late, and profound relationships shockingly revealed. In this spellbinding tale of tragedy and mercy, love and healing, the farther the ship sails toward the Promised Land, the more her passengers seem moored to a past that will never let them go. "O'Connor's luscious book brews the suspense of a thriller with the scope and passion of a Victorian novel�??seasoned in authentic historical detail and served up in language that is equal parts lyrical and gritty." �??Booklist "Engrossing . . . will hold historical fiction fans rapt." �??Publishers Weekly… (more)
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The Star of the Sea sets sail for America bearing its handful of first-class passengers and its steerage section crowded with destitute, starving Irish men and women; some bearing a murderous resentment for Lord Meredith, fleeing bankruptcy with his wife and their two sons, for his perceived role of evicting landlord. The family’s maid, Mary Duane sails with them, her cargo a personal history that embroils Meredith (no saint, but a strangely sympathetic sinner) with Pius Mulvey, a prison escapee who, despite his back-story of abhorrent misdeeds, is also more compelling to the reader than repellent; such is O’Connor’s gift for character. Also aboard is the book’s ‘author’, American journalist (and aspiring novelist), Grantley Dixon, lover of Laura Meredith, whose presence torments Lord Meredith equally for the man’s relentlessly touted social conscience, and relationship with the Earl’s wife.
Entwined with the unfolding drama, like another character, is the atmosphere of a famished Ireland and her people, and the conditions those lucky enough to be fleeing to a new life must survive or perish more miserably, perhaps, than if they had remained on shore, and the way the one tragedy colours the story, motives, and drama of the other is O’Connor’s primary accomplishment here.
The depth of writing employed by Joseph O'Connor in Star of the Sea is not something to which I am accustomed, but I am left spellbound nonetheless. It was published in 2002, but it read more like a classic. The language was lovely, and if I was a more competent book reviewer I would be able to present you with several lovely quotes to exemplify this language of which I speak... but you will have to simply discover it for youself! :)
In the first chapter, the reader is informed of the murder that will take place on board the Star, but divulging this seemingly large detail in the opening pages gives absolutely nothing away. The ending was still surprising, and I venture to say there are still several plotlines and complexities that I do not fully understand (I need a book club for discussion!). What I most loved was O'Connor's ability to illuminate the atrocities of famine and poverty while maintaining a moving, engaging plot.
Final thoughts: If you prefer quick plot twists and lots of action, this one might be a bit drawn out for you. Otherwise, I highly recommend Star of the Sea.
This is also a very Irish novel, bleak and beautiful, couched in lyric language and imagery, full of characters who might have just stepped out of Irish ballads – hard drinking laborers, cruel landlords, wily thieves, wastrel balladeers, doomed lovers, wronged servant girls – and set in 1847, the great potato famine. Except that, in O’Connor’s adept hands, these archetypes gain flesh (so that we feel their pain), hearts (so that we experience their sorrows) and souls (making it impossible for us to deny their humanity).
Reading these past two paragraphs, I realize there’s a risk of scaring people away with all the sorrow and despair stuff. While I can’t pretend anyone actually ends up living happily ever after at the culmination of this tale, I can reassure potential readers that if you enjoy Dickens, you’ll enjoy this for many of the same reasons. Aside from memorably multi-faceted characters, period ambiance, and bracing satire, a significant enticement is the choice O’Connor has made to let the story unfold through a variety of different literary forms – captain’s logs, newspaper articles, bits of letters and diary entries, police interviews, etc. This literary device not only allows the story to be told through multiple perspectives, but provides ample range to for the author to showcase his formidable narrative creativity and dexterous storytelling.
For this is, above all, a story about stories, and especially storytelling. This is O’Connor reminding us that two million Irish dead of famine isn’t a statistic – it’s two million separate stories, each one tragic in its own unique way. And it’s about the power that all of us possess to shape our own narratives, especially the decisions we make about how we to cast ourselves in the stories we tell to ourselves and others: whether we see ourselves (or wish to be seen by others) as protagonists or antagonists, dissemblers or truth-tellers, victims or villains. Just in case we as a society begin to forget that what we think of as “reality” will always be relative, as long as history continues to be fashioned by the narratives of the survivors, and the narratives of those who do not survive fade gradually away.
have to say that this is a time when I really appreciate my book club. I ended up enjoying this book, but it was very slow going for a long time. If I hadn’t been reading it for my book
My favorite part was the fictional description of how Charles Dickens got the information that led to his writing the book Oliver Twist. I was smiling through that whole short section of this book. Still smiling thinking about it.
The writing is poetic & beautiful. Obviously well researched historical fiction. There is a mystery but what’s revealed is not what ended up being most important to me. What fascinated me most were the development of the many interesting characters, and especially the impeccable descriptions of what it must have been like in famine stricken Ireland in the mid 1800s.
Lord Merridith, thrown out of his home by his father and now bankrupt;
It took me a while to get into the Dickensiann style of writing but once I did, O'Connor had me captivated. Not only is the style Dickensian but Dickens himself appears as a character. I really felt like I was reading one of the 'classics' to be honest and possibly have a dictionary at hand for some of the more challenging vocabulary!
The narrative is fabulous and O'Connor's characters are completley rounded due to his vocabulary and description. If this had not been recommended to me I would not have bought it. It took me about 80 pages to get into before I felt I was on board, so persevere if you think it's not for you.
Enjoy the journey through the characters' lives through some wonderful writing as they make the journey to the promised land. But as the old saying goes - is the grass always greener on the other side?
A murderer is on board the ‘Star of the Sea’, a killer whose identity is unclear. The masks are gradually lifted in this psychological study of transgression and desperation, an analysis that also includes accounts of great compassion and humanity. A difficult text to classify Star of the Sea is at once a ‘whodunnit’, a thriller, a love story and a historical fiction novel.
Passengers are segregated throughout the voyage, primarily thought the class barriers that exist between the First Class and steerage passenger, though issues such as nationality, religion and gender also play a part. As the novel progresses these borders are breached to reveal that it is what these characters share that results in the deepest rifts and most shocking consequences.
In this meticulously researched piece O’Connor interrogates the notion of English Imperialism as being the sole cause of Ireland’s misfortune. Other contributing factors, particularly the abject failure of Irish landlords to aid their starving tenants, are examined. A complex text, made up of personal recollections, letters, diaries, illustrations, newspaper articles and ballads. The density of form heightens the sense of verisimilitude achieved through insistent attention to detail and a compelling writing style.
The Star of the Sea is a ship sailing to America from Ireland at the time of the famine. The Steerage passangers had pawned, stolen and done all manor of things to get the fare together and leave the hideous privations that had taken hold in Ireland when the potato crops failed, three or four years in a row. They had NOTHING and dreamed of finding a paradise across the Atlantic in America.
In steerage we hear the story of a murderer, and why he had to commit this terrible crime. In first class were Lord Kingscourt and his wife and two young sons who were also fleeing Ireland,(Kingscourt was perceived as one of the despicable landlords, evicting the poor, starving, sick tenants who could not pay their rents) along with their maid Mary Duane, who features quite significantly in the story. And there was also a newspaper reporter who happened to be Laura Kingscourt's lover. And is a very uncomfortable character.
The story jumps back and forth from the ship taking this volitile mixture of passengers to America, and Connemara in Ireland highlighting the terrible living conditions for the people there.
I thought the book thought provoking but entirely predictable. Uncomfortable at times for the unfairness of it all, and the misery that the English caused these people. It wasn't for me entirely enjoyable, but was compelling nonetheless
Absolutely wonderful.
This is the story of the 1847 voyage of a ship filled with emigrants: the "Star of the Sea" and her captain and crew. One man from Connemara, Pius Mulvey, is forced to undertake the murder of impoverished Lord Kingscourt--David Merridith, an Englishman. Those who order him are members of a clandestine group of agitators, the "Hibernian Defenders" who hate how cruelly the landowners have treated their tenant-farmers. They say if Mulvey doesn't do the job, he himself will be killed. The story consists of the captain's log for each day at sea [28] and its events. As the journey progresses it becomes bleaker and more grim. Then various chapters give the backgrounds of Mulvey, Mary Duane whom he seduces, Mirridith and family, and many others. An American newspaperman, Dixon, is on board and writes from his point of view continuing after the ship reaches America, its difficulties with the authorities, until concluding on Easter 1916.
The writing was gorgeous and amazing. The author waxed poetic on occasion. Sometimes the writing was strong and clipped. The story twisted and turned interweaving all these lives.
A strong, vivid image taken from the description of when the Hibernian Defenders threaten Mulvey:
"He remembered their eyes, so frightened and convinced. The black stained sackcloth of the hooded masks they wore. The slashed out holes where their mouths appeared. They were wielding the tools of their livelihood, but as weapons -- scythes, mattocks, loys, billhooks. Now they had no livelihood left. Centuries stolen in one stunning moment. Their fathers' labour; their sons' inheritances. At the stroke of a pen, they were gone.
Black and green fields. The green of the banner draped across the table, spattered with ribbons of Mulvey's blood. The glint of the weapon they had made him take, the fisherman's knife pressed to his chest, while they raged at him about freedom and land and thievery. The words SHEFFIELD STEEL etched into the blade. He could feel it now, in the pocket of his greatcoat, nestled to his lacerated thigh. He remembered the things they said they would do with that knife if he didn't stop whingeing about murder being too heavy to put on him. When they held him down and started to cut him, Mulvey screamed to be allowed to kill."
A poetic description of the ocean:
"Maritime wreckage. Bone and driftwood. Darker now: the wind blasting and stopping, like exchanges on a battlefield when ammunition is low. Everything had a blue and shadowy look."
Sometimes we "heard" voices of some of the passengers; each was distinct. The plot presented some as interviews, letters [even to misspellings and Irish dialect], an excerpt from a novel of the newspaperman, as songs or prayers. One chapter was a litany to the Virgin Mary; I could hear the frightened steerage passengers reciting the words. I could feel the captain was a compassionate Quaker through his writing. I really empathized with the characters and their conditions. I felt the stench and squalor of steerage conditions. I appreciated the long and detailed "Notes & Acknowledgements" at the end; I feel the reality and truth of the novel.
In steerage is a strange man named Pius Mulvey but has been known to go by many names. He and his brother Nicholas took far different paths; Nicholas becoming a priest and Pius a thief, swindler, and murderer.
The book is basically told from the annuals of the Captain, but there are intervening chapters giving the lives of these characters.
At times the story got a bit confusing, but the overall plot is interesting and all the characters are products of their environment and the decisions they have made. I especially liked the final chapters which told what happened to them. Good read.