Crossing Highbridge: A Memoir of Irish America (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780815606826)

The first in her family born in the United States, Maureen Waters grew up the "Bronx Irish" daughter of two unforgettable immigrants: her storytelling, former revolutionary father, and her fierce, IRA-supporting mother. Crossing Highbridge is framed by the accidental death of Waters's son and her struggle to make sense of this loss by re-imagining her past and her heritage.

Her life in postwar New York City was colored by Catholicism and strong cultural links to "the other side"--by Irish step dancing, the melodies of Thomas Moore, and the rituals, inflections, and harrowing memories impressed on her. Sex was a mystery. Schoolgirls wore below-the-knee blue serge uniforms with starched white collars and
cuffs. Brutal treatment at the hands of the nuns who ran her college drove Waters to transfer to a secular school.

Waters rebelled against an upbringing that seemed to wall her off from the twentieth century. She marr ed outside the church, divorced, and became a scholar and professor at the City University of New York. Waters follows in the tradition of her father with this vividly humorous and moving true tale.

Author: Maureen Waters
ISBN-10: 0815606826
ISBN-13: 9780815606826
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/01/2001
Pages: 168
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 9.33h x 6.28w x 0.72d

Review Citation(s):
Women's Review of Books 09/01/2001 pg. 22
Commonweal 02/22/2002 pg. 22
Reference and Research Bk News 08/01/2001 pg. 59