Tales from the Irish Club

Tales from the Irish Club contains 11 wry accounts of an enclave of Irish Americans in Pittsburgh during and after World War II. In this first collection of short stories by Lester Goran are the often comic, sometimes tragic tales of Jack Lanahan, the transcendental artist who carves nothing but wooden roosters; Long Conall O'Brien, haunted by the ghosts of prostitutes he has known world-wide; Mrs. Pauline Conlon, famous as the woman who outlives three husbands?until she meets Sailor Kiernan; and the night an image of the Madonna appears on the wall of Local No. 9 of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Ranging from the grimly realistic to the fantastic, Goran's stories examine lives so unheralded that only the Irish Club, Forbes Field?where the Pirates break their hearts, and St. Agnes Church?where they attend school and prepare for eternity?know their joys and sorrows.