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One of America's Best loved
and most widely read novelists, continues the chronicles of the crazy O'Malleys, the
family readers have gotten to know in the acclaimed novels A Midwinter's Tale, Younger
than Springtime, and A Christmas Wedding. September Song recalls the great
Lanny Budd books of Upton Sinclair and gives the reader a very clearheaded picture of
America in the sixties: what, underneath all the hype, it was really like to be alive and
in the middle of things during that extraordinary period. September Song begins with the
mild-mannered Chucky, our hero, calling President Lyndon B. Johnson a vulgar, corrupt
redneck to his face and to the horror of his wife, Rosemarie. After being appointed
Ambassador to Germany (the youngest ambassador in history), Chucky served in Germany, the
scene of his coming of age, with great distinction, but he parted company with President
Johnson over the Vietnam War.
Chucky is a reluctant hero
who wanted to be an accountant but turned out to be one of the world's great
photographers, having been pushed into that field by his relentlessly Irish and endlessly
charming wife. Unable to stay out of trouble or trouble spots, Chucky and Rosemarie always
seem to be where the action is, in the middle of things in Selma and on the march with Dr.
King-but only Chucky ends up lost at sea in Vietnam.
The O'Malleys are
irrepressible, and in September Song, their fourth novel, they are as wild, funny,
and enchanting as ever, Must be the Irish blood.
Editorial
Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This fourth installment in Father Greeley's ongoing O'Malley family saga (A Midwinter's
Tale; Younger Than Springtime; Christmas Wedding) focuses on the spitfire Irish Chuck
O'Malley and his gorgeous wife, Rosemarie. Set against the turbulent events of the 1960s
following the Kennedy assassination, the novel opens with Chuck handing in his resignation
as German ambassador to President Johnson. On a first-name basis with all the major
political figures of the time, Chuck strongly opposes Lyndon's position on the Vietnam
War. He returns to Chicago with his wife and five children, only to be notified by Bobby
(Kennedy, that is) of the historic civil rights march in Selma, Ala. With the dynamic
Rosemarie by his side, he rushes to
the South to march alongside Dr. Martin Luther King. The story continues summarily as the
O'Malleys skip from one political hot spot to the next, making their appearances at the
Chicago Democratic Convention and even in Vietnam, always with Chuck front and center and
doting narrator Rosemarie singing her "little leprechaun's" praises. Sprinkled
with similarly silly endearments and some chaste love-making scenes, the novel proceeds
along a predictable historic course, weaving a Forrest Gump-like path through the '60s.
Not quite as entertaining as
Gump's tale, though charged with its own innocent brio, the O'Malley saga loses steam
faster than its prolific author, who will probably churn out the next installment before
the reader reaches the end of this one.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business
Information, Inc.
From the
"Booklist"
This fourth novel in Greeley's series about the plucky O'Malley family of Oak Park,
Illinois, has the family improbably placed at the center of nearly every historical event
that took place in the 1960s. From an appointment to President Kennedy's cabinet for the
father of the family, Chuck O'Malley, to wife Rosemarie's participation in the march on
Selma, and the family's involvement in the infamous Chicago Democratic Convention, and in
protesting the Vietnam War, the O'Malleys are everywhere. Narrated by Rosemarie, the
important situations this supposedly typical Chicago Irish family find themselves in
become almost too much to believe for the reader. One minute meeting with Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. or the president of the U.S., the next flying off to Rome to participate
in meetings about Vatican II changes in the Catholic Church--it's just a bit overdone. In
the midst of all this important historical activity, the O'Malleys still find time to
raise their five impishly beautiful children and to pursue their hyperactive sex life.
Despite these problems, the story is entertaining Kathleen Hughes
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