Whole minutes passed when I didn’t think of my man and the swimming lesson set up for the next day, if no one was murdered before then, or the cars stopped, or a bomb go off somewhere…
On a hot, humid Monday afternoon in July 1919, Maeve
Curragh watches as a blimp plunges from the sky and
smashes into a downtown Chicago bank building. It is the
first of ten extraordinary days in Chicago that will
forever change her life.
Racial tensions mount as soldiers return from the
battlefields of Europe and the Great Migration brings new
faces to the city, culminating in violent race riots.
Each day the young Irish immigrant, a catalogue order
clerk for the Chicago Magic Company, devours the news of
a metropolis where cultural pressures are every bit as febrile
as the weather. But her interest in the headlines wanes when she catches the eye of a charming streetcar conductor.
Maeve’s singular voice captures the spirit of a young woman living through one of Chicago’s most turbulent periods. Seamlessly blending fact with fiction, Mary Burns weaves a compelling and evocative tale of how an ordinary life can became inextricably linked with history.
Available at all the usual on-line outlets or at your favourite independent bookstore.
Vancouver, B.C. launch, Saturday, April 23, 3:30 PM, 1220 East Pender
Toronto launch, Saturday, April 30, 3:30 PM, Victory Café, 581 Markham
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