Crossing Highbridge

by Waters, Maureen

• ISBN13: 9780815606826
• ISBN10: 0815606826
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-01
• Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr

Summary

An evocative tale of coming to womanhood in the disorienting 1960s -- a girl in the world of nuns and the Holy Ghost -- but or a deeper level, this is a story of a woman who has suffered unimaginable loss and attempts to make sense of that loss by re-imagining her past and her own Irish-American heritage.

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

Author Biography

Maureen Waters is professor of English and acting director of Irish Studies at Queens College, New York.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Brian Patrick	3	(8)
Bronx Irish	11	(88)
The Bridge	11	(2)
University Avenue	13	(7)
An Irish Father	20	(9)
Mayo Woman	29	(8)
Tribal Voices	37	(5)
Nuns	42	(10)
Death's Dominion	52	(4)
Rockaway	56	(3)
A Green World	59	(6)
Songs and Hornpipes	65	(4)
The Flesh and the Devil	69	(6)
Intermperate Need	75	(8)
Soundings	83	(7)
No Celestial Signpost	90	(9)
Mythologies	99	(8)
Locating America	107	(16)
At the Interior	123	(18)
Appendix	141