Summary
All Souls is Michael Patrick MacDonald's memoir about growing up in the 1970s in the projects of South Boston. The eighth of his mother's ten children, MacDonald was eight years old when busing in Boston put his neighborhood, Southie, on the nightly news. Violence erupts, and South Boston, a working class Irish neighborhood, becomes the poster child of racial intolerance. He writes about those years from the perspective of one who remembers throwing rocks at buses of black children from Roxbury--and who later in life became an activist whose work aimed to stem violence in Boston's poorest communities, both black and white. MacDonald writes of the loss of four of his siblings, all of whom succumbed to the poverty and violence that afflicted his community. MacDonald took a risk in writing All Souls as it unveiled parts of life in Southie--namely violence, addiction, and organized crime--that few in this proud community wanted made public.
Critical Evaluation
MacDonald opens All Souls with a phrase about South Boston, known as “the best place in the world” by those who lived there. Having grown up in Southie, MacDonald knew that pride, but he also saw what it masked. Having lost four of his ten siblings to addiction and violence on Southie’s streets, MacDonald broke a code of silence and told his story of growing up in a white community that wasn’t really all that different from Roxbury, the poor black section of town just a few miles away. Like Roxbury, South Boston had an overabundance of drugs and rats in its public housing projects, drive-by shootings and high school drop outs. For living authors, there can be a high price to pay for breaking silence and telling one’s story. Shortly after the publication of All Souls, MacDonald moved from the Boston area--there were many in his community who did not appreciate his work. Still, if his memoir opened any dialogue, allowed for more social programs in his community or helped even a few young people understand that they are not alone--then it seems that some of the struggle might have been worth it.
Reader’s Annotation
In his memoir All Souls, Michael Patrick MacDonald breaks a code of silence about what it was like growing up poor in the 1970s and 1980s in South Boston, a community plagued with drugs and violence.
Information about the Author
According to the author’s website, “Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up in South Boston’s Old Colony housing project. After losing four siblings and seeing his generation decimated by poverty, crime, and addiction, he became a leading Boston activist, helping launch many antiviolence initiatives, including gun-buyback programs. He continues to work for social change nationally, collaborating with survivor families and young people.
MacDonald won the American Book Award in 2000. His national bestseller, All Souls, and his follow-up, Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion have been adopted by university curriculums across the country. MacDonald has written numerous essays for the Boston Globe Op-Ed Page and has completed the screenplay of All Souls for director Ron Shelton. He is currently Author-in-Residence at Northeastern University. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.”
Genre
Memoir/ Non-Fiction
Curriculum Ties
In an interdisciplinary study looking at the legacy of the Civil Rights era in the US, All Souls would be an excellent book to include alongside Danzy Senna’s Caucasia and J. Anthony Lukas’ Common Ground.
Booktalking Ideas
Juxtapose the line “The best place in the world” with one of the tough passages from the memoir, for example, when his sister has a serious fall after overdosing and goes into a coma.
Reading Level/ Interest Age
Ages 16+
Challenge Issues
N/A
Why Included?
This is one of my favorite memoirs, and I think it helps to open up dialogue and thinking on some common misconceptions i.e. all poverty and its associated problems are concentrated in communities of color. A certain kind of reader has a preference for “real” stories, and this is a great one.
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