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 EASTER
RISING by
Michael Patrick MacDonald (Houghton
Mifflin) NonFiction. 2006. 248 pages. Growing up in one of
South Boston
’s (MA) roughest projects, Michael Patrick MacDonald spent most of his
time lying about where is was from, ashamed of where he was from, and
trying his best to distance himself from where he lived. Along with
handling the racial insanity swirling around the mid 1970’s
Boston
busing crisis, Michael had to deal with the violent deaths of a handful of
his siblings, the near death and coma of his sister, and trying his best
to fight the urges of crime and drugs. One of MacDonald’s methods of
escaping this world was partaking in the wonders of punk rock music. High
tailing it out of South Boston, MacDonald joined the ranks of
Boston
’s punk scene and often traveled to
New York City
to support his favorite bands. While escaping his surroundings to travel
with punk bands and friends, Michael realized how experiencing and
witnessing life outside of the projects was important to his heart, mind,
and soul. Using this newly found motivation to travel, MacDonald found
himself traveling to
England
,
Ireland
, and other places to satisfy questions covering many areas.
If you read his first book, All Souls, then you certainly know of the tragedy that surrounded
Michael Patrick MacDonald’s life. If you haven’t read it you should,
but you do not need to have that book in your brain to make sense of this
newest effort. While Easter Rising
does touch on the tragedies, the meat of the book details MacDonald’s
attempts at escaping his world, the vehicles that aided his escape, and
the fuel that motivated the escape. Although reading about this poor
bastard’s troubles was rough, I loved reading about the punk rock
exploits as Michael hit the
Boston
punk scene some years before me and discusses various bands, people, and
venues that I had only heard of from older punkers. When I was a young
lad, I spent a lot of time in Dorchester (not far from South Boston) and
can relate 100% with Michael and his being punk amongst city slickin’,
disco loving, feathered hair styling, silk shirt wearing baboons. His
mention of this had me strolling down memory lane and laughing. Those not
into punk rock may be thrown or disinterested in all the punk stuff, but
the rest of the content is compelling enough to overshadow any punk
dyslexia. Easter Rising, it’s
a page turner and you should get to turning its pages. – Denis Sheehan
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