Joseph O'Connor's impressive historical novel, Star of the Sea, examines the unsettled personal tragedies among a group of interrelated characters and their difficulties in disregarding the past. Lord Merridith and his family board the titular ship in 1847, bound for New York, leaving behind an Ireland devastated by famine and strife. The family's beautiful nanny, Mary Duane, is with them, having fled a life of poverty, prostitution, and extreme tragedy. Another passenger, American journalist Grantley Dixon, is lured to America by business and his thinly veiled affair with Lady Merridith. Mary Duane discovers that Pius Mulvey, her former fiancé and the brother of her deceased husband, is among the overcrowded group of disease-ridden steerage passengers. A renowned thief and murderer, Mulvey abandoned Duane, only to return and sabotage her life in Ireland. Despised by his countrymen, Mulvey has been ordered by a group of steerage thugs to assassinate the demonized Merridith or face his own death.

Conflict is inevitable, but O'Connor is more interested in the complexity of history and relationships and how each makes reinvention and resolution impossible. O'Connor presents the story as a work of journalism written by Dixon, composed in the era's tabloid style, even including passages from the captain's register and crew interviews. These devices lend the work a sense of authenticity, reinforced by the author's intimate knowledge of the period and his evocative, realistic prose: "At night one sensed the ship as absurdly out of its element, a creaking, leaking, incompetent concoction of oak and pitch and nails and faith, bobbing on a wilderness of viciously black water which could explode at the slightest provocation." O'Connor conveys a sense of immediacy and dimension in his ambitious story, providing this uncertain voyage with an ultimate sense of direction. --Ross Doll


From Publishers Weekly
First published in the U.K. and shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year, this brooding new historical fiction by novelist, playwright and critic O'Connor (Cowboys and Indians) chronicles the mayhem aboard Star of the Sea, a leaky old sailing ship crossing from Ireland to New York during the bitter winter of 1847, its steerage crammed to the bulkheads with diseased and starving refugees from the Irish potato famine. The novel takes the form of a personal account written by passenger G. Grantley Dixon, a New York Times reporter who intersperses his narrative with reportage and interviews as he describes the intrigue that unfolds during the 26-day journey. There's Pius Mulvey, "a sticklike limping man from Connemara" known to the passengers as "the monster" or "the ghost," who shuffles menacingly around the ship and is the subject of many a rumor. There's Earl David Merridith of Kingscourt, one of the few passengers in first class, who has evicted thousands of his tenants for nonpayment of rent, dooming them and their families to almost certain death by starvation. Also aboard is the young widow, Mary Duane, a nanny for the Kingscourt children who shares a history of intimacies with both Kingscourt and Mulvey. And there is, of course, Kingscourt's wife, with whom Dixon is having an ill-advised affair. One of these passengers is on a mission to commit murder, and another is the fated victim. Through flashbacks, the complicated narrative paints a vivid picture of the rigors of life in Ireland in the mid-19th century. The engrossing, well-structured tale will hold historical fiction fans rapt.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
O'Connor's luscious book brews the suspense of a thriller with the scope and passion of a Victorian novel--seasoned in authentic historical detail and served up in language that is equal parts lyrical and gritty. A voyage from Ireland to New York in 1847 brings together people whose lives--past and present--twist around each other in ways that threaten to strangle. While some have more personal reasons for making the crossing, they're also emigrating from a country scorched by famine, oppression, and the violence erupting from a desperate underclass. The author loads the ship with compelling characters, and the most intriguing is the vengeful and cunningly manipulative Pius Mulvey. In this passage, he kills a prison guard who had abused him: "He sank to his hunkers, said an Act of Contrition in his dying rapist's ear and bashed in what was left of his face with the rock." Mulvey deserves a place among the classic villains of literature, just as his creator, a Dublin-based novelist, is earning his spot in the ranks of great Irish storytellers. Karen Holt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
A brave and artful novel.


PEOPLE
A powerfully symbolic microcosm of the time. Bottom Line: Shining Star


Review
Praise for Joseph O?Connor?s Inishowen:
?This is a tremendous book; affecting, intelligent, ironic, humane and utterly convincing. It is also
extremely funny.? -- Spectator

?His writing is terrific.? -- Roddy Doyle


From the Hardcover edition.


Book Description
In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by famine and injustice, the Star of the Sea sets sail for NewYork. On board are hundreds of refugees, some optimistic, many more desperate. Among them are a maid with a devastating secret, the bankrupt Lord Merridith, his wife and children, and a killer stalking the decks, hungry for the vengeance that will bring absolution.

This journey will see many lives end, others begin anew. Passionate loves are tenderly recalled, shirked responsibilities regretted too late, and profound relationships shockingly revealed. In this spellbinding tale of tragedy and mercy, love and healing, the farther the ship sails toward the Promised Land, the more her passengers seem moored to a past that will never let them go.

As urgently contemporary as it is historical, this exciting and compassionate novel builds with the pace of a thriller to a stunning conclusion.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Fans of Matthew Kneale's English Passengers and Sheri Holman's The Dress Lodger will find themselves enthralled with this tale of a sea journey from the Emerald Isle across the Atlantic. Brimming with exquisitely rendered characters and historical detail, this captivating tale of mystery and murder combines the elements of the literary novel, historical epic, and thriller to create a muscular work of fiction with a surprising sense of page-turning urgency. Making a wintry voyage from Ireland to New York in 1847, the Star of the Sea is a ship filled with passengers whose range from humble folk fleeing the ravages of the Irish Potato Famine to bankrupt aristocrats trying to outrun the secrets of their past. Beneath these class differences lies a web of connections marked by betrayal and hatred that spans generations and is about to turn murderous.

Narrated by a fictitious journalist for The New York Times, O'Connor's novel is adroitly studded with interviews and reportage of the 26-day journey. A literary star in Ireland, O'Connor splashes onto our shores with formidable proof of his literary gifts, an epic feast of a novel revealing impeccable language skills and an ear for dialogue, combined with a wonderful attention to detail and subtle nuances. Summer 2003 Selection

ANNOTATION

Join Joseph O'Connor for our free Online Reading Group on Star of the Sea. The conversation begins February 7th -- sign up now!

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by famine and injustice, the Star of the Sea sets sail for NewYork. On board are hundreds of refugees, some optimistic, many more desperate. Among them are a maid with a devastating secret, the bankrupt Lord Merridith, his wife and children, and a killer stalking the decks, hungry for the vengeance that will bring absolution.

This journey will see many lives end, others begin anew. Passionate loves are tenderly recalled, shirked responsibilities regretted too late, and profound relationships shockingly revealed. In this spellbinding tale of tragedy and mercy, love and healing, the farther the ship sails toward the Promised Land, the more her passengers seem moored to a past that will never let them go.

As urgently contemporary as it is historical, this exciting and compassionate novel builds with the pace of a thriller to a stunning conclusion.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Joseph O'Connor, an Irish critic and playwright who is also the author of several previous novels, lures us into an easy read that, before we know it, becomes a chilling indictment not of a murderer but of us. As a London publisher says midway through the book, advising a writer unsuccessfully peddling his fiction, this is ''a good old thumping yarn,'' the sort of thing a reader can ''sink his tusks into.'' But Star of the Sea is also an agonizing inquiry into the nature of abandonment and the difficulty of finding anyone who will truly care about the fate of others. How large does suffering have to loom before we take notice? O'Connor suggests that we can tolerate mountains of misery, sipping our coffee and reading our newspapers as the corpses pile up beneath the headlines. — James R. Kincaid

Publishers Weekly

First published in the U.K. and shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year, this brooding new historical fiction by novelist, playwright and critic O'Connor (Cowboys and Indians) chronicles the mayhem aboard Star of the Sea, a leaky old sailing ship crossing from Ireland to New York during the bitter winter of 1847, its steerage crammed to the bulkheads with diseased and starving refugees from the Irish potato famine. The novel takes the form of a personal account written by passenger G. Grantley Dixon, a New York Times reporter who intersperses his narrative with reportage and interviews as he describes the intrigue that unfolds during the 26-day journey. There's Pius Mulvey, "a sticklike limping man from Connemara" known to the passengers as "the monster" or "the ghost," who shuffles menacingly around the ship and is the subject of many a rumor. There's Earl David Merridith of Kingscourt, one of the few passengers in first class, who has evicted thousands of his tenants for nonpayment of rent, dooming them and their families to almost certain death by starvation. Also aboard is the young widow, Mary Duane, a nanny for the Kingscourt children who shares a history of intimacies with both Kingscourt and Mulvey. And there is, of course, Kingscourt's wife, with whom Dixon is having an ill-advised affair. One of these passengers is on a mission to commit murder, and another is the fated victim. Through flashbacks, the complicated narrative paints a vivid picture of the rigors of life in Ireland in the mid-19th century. The engrossing, well-structured tale will hold historical fiction fans rapt. 4-city author tour. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Aboard the creaky Star of the Sea, a motley handful of first-class passengers and hundreds of evicted tenants fleeing the 1840s Irish famine endure a stormy voyage to America. The first-class passengers include a bankrupted Irish landlord, Lord David Merridith; his discontented wife, Laura; an aspiring American man of letters, G. Grantley Dixon; and a compassionate English doctor who cares for dying famine victims below deck. Completing this microcosm of Irish society are Merridith's servant, Mary Duane, a victim of sexual abuse by her employer, and a mysterious Irish balladeer in steerage named Pius Mulvey, who is gradually revealed to be a notorious murderer armed with a mandate to kill David Merridith before the ship's arrival in New York harbor. Oscillating between the life stories of the characters in Ireland and the deaths of dozens of weakened famine victims aboard the ship, O'Connor (Cowboys and Indians) brilliantly weaves together an intriguing plot, a cast of memorable characters, and some stunningly realistic dialog. Universal themes of love, loyalty, vengeance, and violence are explored in the context of a troubled class-ridden society convulsed by the catastrophic potato blight. This first-rate historical thriller will prove popular in all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]-Joseph M. Eagan, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

People

Along the way O'Connor even brings in a thoroughly gripping murder mystery that is all the more affecting for the depth he gives his characters. They add up to a powerfully symbolic microcosm of the time. Bottom Line: Shining Star

Kirkus Reviews

A bumptious epic about a New World-bound ship Star of the Sea, full of raging immigrants, conflicted aristocrats, and a flint-eyed murderer. It￯﾿ﾽs the tumultuous year of 1847 when O￯﾿ﾽConnor￯﾿ﾽs gallimaufry of characters board a "coffin ship" bound from Ireland to New York. Hundreds of famine refugees huddle in steerage, while just above them a handful of first-class passengers reside in splendor, though they￯﾿ﾽre rent with hidden intrigues—and all hear the thudding gait of the loner with the bad leg who wanders the ship at night. At center are two men in particular: the aristocrat David Merridith and the limping loner, Pius Mulvey. Merridith is a self-loathing scion of a British family that had long owned a large chunk of Ireland. When the estate￯﾿ﾽs fortunes crashed, at the height of the famine, most of the tenant families were put off the land—while corpses littered the countryside. Now on his way to New York with wife and children, Merridith has many secrets, most concerning their servant, Mary Duane. Pius is of a different stripe, though he hates himself just as much: having abandoned a pregnant girlfriend and his slightly mad brother in Ireland, Pius made himself into a high-living thief in London￯﾿ﾽs East End, one night even giving great inspiration to Charles Dickens, who was slumming for material. Later come to ruin, Pius has been embarked on a mission by some Hibernian thugs who won￯﾿ﾽt take no for an answer: kill the English scum David Merridith. Told mostly in flashbacks, and mostly through the highly arched voice of first-class passenger and journalist Grantley Dixon, this is the sort of gloriously overstuffed story that could be told in hushed breath over fifteen or so lengthyinstallments on late-night radio. Irish author O￯﾿ﾽConnor ('Yeats Is Dead!' 2001; etc.) pulls out all the melodramatic stops for a thrilling tale without once losing his eye for the right detail or his ear for the perfect phrase.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING