Excerpt from Ch. 6 – McGowan’s Wake

At the bottom of this post is a link to a SoundCloud file from Chapter 6 of Light of the Diddicoy.

I don’t believe in long, boring readings where you have to pay close attention to the droning, monotone voice, so I always do my best to keep a listener involved and interested. Trust me when I say you will be shook by this excerpt.

The Tenement Wake – A tenement wake was commonplace in mid-to-late1800s and early 1900s New York City. Too poor to afford a regular funeral home, or, unwilling to trust others with the body of their dead (including the church), people who lived in tenements often had their wake right in their own living room (or “parlor” as it was known then), as is the case in this scene from Chapter 6 of Light of the Diddicoy, which takes place in December, 1915 in a tenement/waterfront neighborhood south of what is called Brooklyn Heights, north of Cobble Hill.

Characters in this excerpt:

Liam Garrity – Narrator, 14 year-old boy from Ireland, taken in by the White Hand Gang.

Dinny Meehan – Leader of the White Hand Gang

Gang Members – The Swede, Vincent Maher, Harry Reynolds, Cinders Connolly

Mother – The mother of McGowan, who was murdered in Sing Sing.

Click here and enjoy

You can find the book here.