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Wiley O'Wary
Wiley O'Wary is a chef from Ireland standing in a Boston pub. His divorce papers are on one dartboard, and a map of America is on the other. He closes his eyes, throws the dart at the map, and the adventure is on! Yet no matter how far from Donegal he wanders, his tangle Irish roots are right behind him With an Irishman's perspective, a chef's perseverance, Guinness, Jameson, and a collection of misfits, Wiley tackles life, love and the demons that haunt him. Belly up to a book where every pint is full, every storm cloud has a rainbow and life's lessons are taught by cooks, rogues and ramblers. By the end you'll be pumping a fist, raising a glass and wiping a tear. Wiley O'Wary is Sparks meets The Pogues with Bourdain riding shotgun!
404 pages, Paperback
Published June 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 8, 2020
Wiley O’Wary by Liam Sean
You’ve all met a Charming Billy before, a private joke glinting in his eye and a wee smile tucked in his cheek as he offers to buy you a drink. Then he leaves the tab which you pay with a nod and a grin. When a story pries a genuine laugh from the vice grip of a dour day it’s worth a donation. Every day is seize the day for Wiley O’Wary. Keep that in mind as you blow about in the windstorm you call an agenda.
Liam Sean celebrates the magic and triumph of common life— work, love, death—and the camaraderie of workmates on a rollercoaster of emotion.
As luck would have it, O’Wary brings his epicurean tools and omnivorous appetite to Grand Rapids. What a fun way to view my hometown—through the eyes of an immigrant. One story leans into another like so many elbows along the bar bolstered with puddles of sorrow and cockled with smirks of comic delight: joy and woe, love and rebellion, in a Celtic pattern.
And around the corner from every sorrow is a laugh to spook the devil.
The dance of luck and serendipity isn’t magic, it’s the river of life, and we navigate it on most days with our eyes closed. Familiarity and habit make us feel safe, but O’Wary embraces chance, respects fate, and leaps into the unknown with eyes wide open.
Thankfully O’Wary is boot deep in the working class. Two leading characters are simply identified as the Waitress and the Sous Chef. Archetypes don’t require nonessential monikers. Kitchen wisdom and culinary acumen stir fry the warp, woof, and wry of life.
“Still, there is something very liberating in working a job that can never be finished. As if the mechanics of the task outweigh the task itself, the freedom lying in the act alone and not in the outcome.” Sean appeals to readers “to find the purpose in work, that the work itself is the reward. That in life, the simplest of things generally held the most meaning.”
Sean’s prose is unblemished by amateur rhetorical flourishes and pompous philosophical ruminations. His plainspoken language conceals (or is it a setup?) delightful surprises. “In England this time of year, night falls with the softness of a very clever thief. The planet’s northern half, tilted ever so slightly further toward the sun, slips into evenings that are nearly as light as day; and then, like your wallet, the sun is taken from you before you even realize.”
Delightful surprises and truths as tender as wildflowers. “In her eyes I could see a flicker, a light as small as a votive, the only brightness in a dark cathedral.”
Wiley O’Wary is primordial stuff—verve, vivacity, the full catastrophe as Zorba the Greek would say—served with enough humor to survive a famine. Give your loved one a novel that will seize the pandemic and squeeze it dry because “no matter how far you wander, home lands right back in your lap.”
Gregg Shotwell
December 2020
You’ve all met a Charming Billy before, a private joke glinting in his eye and a wee smile tucked in his cheek as he offers to buy you a drink. Then he leaves the tab which you pay with a nod and a grin. When a story pries a genuine laugh from the vice grip of a dour day it’s worth a donation. Every day is seize the day for Wiley O’Wary. Keep that in mind as you blow about in the windstorm you call an agenda.
Liam Sean celebrates the magic and triumph of common life— work, love, death—and the camaraderie of workmates on a rollercoaster of emotion.
As luck would have it, O’Wary brings his epicurean tools and omnivorous appetite to Grand Rapids. What a fun way to view my hometown—through the eyes of an immigrant. One story leans into another like so many elbows along the bar bolstered with puddles of sorrow and cockled with smirks of comic delight: joy and woe, love and rebellion, in a Celtic pattern.
And around the corner from every sorrow is a laugh to spook the devil.
The dance of luck and serendipity isn’t magic, it’s the river of life, and we navigate it on most days with our eyes closed. Familiarity and habit make us feel safe, but O’Wary embraces chance, respects fate, and leaps into the unknown with eyes wide open.
Thankfully O’Wary is boot deep in the working class. Two leading characters are simply identified as the Waitress and the Sous Chef. Archetypes don’t require nonessential monikers. Kitchen wisdom and culinary acumen stir fry the warp, woof, and wry of life.
“Still, there is something very liberating in working a job that can never be finished. As if the mechanics of the task outweigh the task itself, the freedom lying in the act alone and not in the outcome.” Sean appeals to readers “to find the purpose in work, that the work itself is the reward. That in life, the simplest of things generally held the most meaning.”
Sean’s prose is unblemished by amateur rhetorical flourishes and pompous philosophical ruminations. His plainspoken language conceals (or is it a setup?) delightful surprises. “In England this time of year, night falls with the softness of a very clever thief. The planet’s northern half, tilted ever so slightly further toward the sun, slips into evenings that are nearly as light as day; and then, like your wallet, the sun is taken from you before you even realize.”
Delightful surprises and truths as tender as wildflowers. “In her eyes I could see a flicker, a light as small as a votive, the only brightness in a dark cathedral.”
Wiley O’Wary is primordial stuff—verve, vivacity, the full catastrophe as Zorba the Greek would say—served with enough humor to survive a famine. Give your loved one a novel that will seize the pandemic and squeeze it dry because “no matter how far you wander, home lands right back in your lap.”
Gregg Shotwell
December 2020
Displaying 1 of 1 review