The Chisellers (Agnes Browne Series) - Softcover

About the Author

Brendan O'Carroll, the youngest of eleven children, was born in Stonybatter, a North Dublin neighborhood, in 1955. He is an acclaimed playwright and Ireland's most popular stand-up comedian. The creator of a hugely successful Irish radio show, Mrs. Browne's Boys (the genesis of his novels), O'Carroll is also an actor and has a role in the upcoming film version of Angela's Ashes. All the books in his Mrs. Browne trilogy were #1 bestsellers in his native Ireland. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

From the Back Cover

Mother. Father. Business consultant. Cop. To her seven high-spirited "chisellers", Agnes Browne is all of these, and more. In the Dublin working-class neighborhood known as The Jarro, it's the Browne clan against the world -- and against the backstreet villains and white-collar emissaries of market forces that threaten to tear this upwardly aspiring family apart.

The Browne brood is about to be relocated to the wilds of suburban Finglas when their tenement is demolished as part of an "Inner City Renewal Plan". With the help of her ambitious eldest boy and her persistent French suitor, Agnes copes with the ups and downs of "rural" life, one unscrupulous gangster, and the son who is well on his way to breaking his mother's heart.

In the second novel of his bestselling Mrs. Browne trilogy, Brendan O'Carroll vividly captures the colorful, bittersweet world of Irish family life. The Chisellers brims with raw humor and moving drama, as one family soldiers on through an unforgettable seasons of success, disappointment, tragedy, and triumph.

Reviews

By turns funny, wise and heartbreaking, this Irish Tales of the City is O'Carroll's second book in his Mrs. Browne trilogy; the first, The Mammy, received high praise after publication in the U.S. last year. Featuring eccentric characters who are charming, irreverent and believable, the story continues in 1973 with Agnes Browne at center stage. A widow raising six sons and a daughter, whom she refers to collectively as the "chisellers," she lives in public housing in inner-city Dublin. Agnes is no angel, which makes her all the more human; she chain-smokes, likes a pint or two of an evening and has a sweet-dispositioned boyfriend, a French immigrant named Pierre, who works at a pizza joint and is endlessly patient with Agnes and her rambunctious brood. Mark Browne is the oldest; at 17, he is apprenticed to a furniture-maker whose business is failing. How Mark saves the business and wins the girl of his dreams inform the main storyline, but each of the siblings and Agnes get their fair share of attention. Frankie, the next in age, is involved with violent local skinheads. After he and his gang brutally beat his younger brother, Rory, a subsequent act further tarnishes Frankie's reputation and outrages his family. This lively novel features a wedding, a funeral and an ending that will melt the hardest heart. Readers will eagerly await the third book in this series. (Mar.) FYI: The film version of The Mammy, starring Anjelica Huston, is currently in release.
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