In My Own Words [Still Running]

Finn, Mickey

IN MY OWN WORDS

(Still Running)

In a tightly constructed, well-paced memoir that sits squarely in the tradition of Dickens and Frank

McCourt, Finn recounts the brutal experience of his confinement in Ireland’s Letterfrack Industrial School, an

institution for juvenile delinquents.

Mickey Finn is 12 years old and lives in putrid conditions with his ne’re-do-well father, beloved mother and

four siblings. His father’s rampant drinking and gambling quickly turn the family into collateral damage, and they

find little relief from a grandmother that never approved of her daughter’s marital choice. When Mickey is

implicated in a petty theft, he is shipped off to an isolated ward where he and the other incarcerated boys tend

livestock, work in the surrounding bogs and endure violent beatings and sexual assault at the hands of the

Christian Brothers.

Finn’s story is one of survival—and a compelling one at that—yet he compartmentalizes the experience as one of inevitable darkness

wherein its recounting sheds only brief moments of light.

Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744

indie@kirkusreviews.