Star of the Sea in Around the World in 80 Books

Dec 28, 2023 Tony rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novels, historical-fiction, own-loanable, crime, setting-ireland, onthewater

The so-called "Irish Potato Famine" is one of those historical disasters I heard about in high school and retained but the vaugest sense of. About all I could recall prior to picking up this impressively immersive work of historical fiction is that a lot of Irish people died, and it spurred a large wave of Irish immigration to the United States. I hadn't realized it spanned seven years (the book takes place in 1847 during the worst of it), or how the structures of Anglo-Irish landlords, tenancy The so-called "Irish Potato Famine" is one of those historical disasters I heard about in high school and retained but the vaugest sense of. About all I could recall prior to picking up this impressively immersive work of historical fiction is that a lot of Irish people died, and it spurred a large wave of Irish immigration to the United States. I hadn't realized it spanned seven years (the book takes place in 1847 during the worst of it), or how the structures of Anglo-Irish landlords, tenancy farming, debtors prisons, and the like played into it. The scale is hard to digest -- about a million people starved to death, another million left Ireland, and another million moved within Ireland -- a societal shock that still resonates today.

The book revolves around the titular ship, on its month-long voyage from Ireland to New York with a handful of first-class passengers, and hundreds of penniless packed below decks in abject squalor and anarchy. Dominating first class is Lord Merridith, a progressive Anglo-Irish landowning peer who is all but bankrupt, seeking to make a new start in America with his wife and two sons. The book flashes back to scenes from his life to explain how he has been reduced to these circumstances. Also in first class is an American journalist -- who is also the lover of Meredith's wife and narrator of various sections of the book. There's also the Merediths' quiet maidservant, who carries a great deal of grief and an especially dark secret across the ocean.

Below decks is a decrepit soul with a wooden foot, bearing the physical and psychic scars of a life ill-spent. Pius Mulvey lived on the Meredith estates and took the crooked path into a life of thievery, drifting to Dublin, Liverpool, and eventually London. Flashbacks show of his misadventures and eventual return to Ireland, where he learns of the fate of his abandoned wife and brother and is pressed into the service of a secret rebel society. He is aboard the Star of the Sea to commit a murder in their name...

Much historical fiction suffers from didactic info dumps and prose that chugs along like a contemporary novel with the occasional ostentatious period detail studded throughout. This is quite different -- it drills into the psychology of its characters, high and low, and situates them in a living, breathing world filled with hardship and struggle. Whether the scene is in the cells of Newgate Prison, the cold hovels of tenant farms, the cold decks of the ship -- the reader is right there with the characters. It's almost too visceral. Although the story has some of the elements of a thriller, it's more of a domestic and social tragedy. Readers interested in getting a true sense of the human impact of the great famine through compelling characters should definitely grab this and settle in for a gripping read. ...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Windy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Moby D1ck without the benefit of the whale! I gave up

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May 12, 2007 mstan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, favourites, irish

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Sep 18, 2008 Martha rated it really liked it

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Jun 15, 2009 Isabel added it · review of another edition

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Mar 16, 2010 Tracyene marked it as to-read

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Sep 11, 2010 Terri FL marked it as to-read

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Oct 03, 2010 Keith marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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Dec 01, 2010 Deedee marked it as to-read

Shelves: historical-fiction, literary-fiction, coverx-water, o, s2, hookedn-best-historical-fiction-uk, cover-brown, literary-fiction-unread, s2-no-articles, j3

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