While it's not the latest hot read, Galway Bay was available in the public library and I can't argue with the price.I've gotten through almost half of Mary Pat Kelly's long saga that is based on her family's emigrant tales.
It's her first work of fiction, but I can't use this as a sample of the sort of writing that's working for debut authors. She's got a pile of writing credentials, non-fiction and newspapers, so there's a lot of slack that gets cut.
Enough "As you know, Bob" moments to set the teeth on edge. Characters dropping Irish phrases, only to translate them into English as if they don't quite understand their own language. Still and all, it's not the writing so much as the over-all style.
I've got my own tale of Irish emigrants to tell, albeit set many years after the Great Hunger that drove Ms. Kelly's ancestors across the Atlantic.
Her novel has inspired me to re-write my own manuscript. I'm in the process of converting a third person point of view to first person.
Make it more personal, so the reader can relate better to the main character who has a miserable time of things.
Then it's off to study the flap copy, to lift a few ideas that can be worked into a query, and then I'll have something else to send around now that the first manuscript seems destined to collect dust under the bed.
Can't seem to stay away from the words, in spite of the heartbreak and disappointment when I learn that no one wants to hear my story. So I keep trying to find the right story.
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