"“This is an extraordinary family story about an extraordinary place called Southie. It is a story of a young man climbing a mountain of violence, to emerge with love and hope. All Souls grasps your emotions from the first pages and won’t let go.”
– Howard Zinn, Author of A People’s History of the United States
“...a critical lesson for all young people and for all of us—and especially for those who’ve experienced some of the same kinds of family and community poverty, violence, and addiction, for whom breaking silences and realizing they are not alone can be life-changing.
– Marian Wright Edelman, President, Children’s Defense Fund
“MacDonald’s gift is that he guides us with vision, insight, humor, and the clear, chiseled word. His is a rare sleight of hand.”
– Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin
“Easter Rising is a brave, heartbreaking piece of truth.”
– Patti Smith, Author of M Train and Just Kids
“Michael Patrick MacDonald rips the cover off the myth that poverty and violence happen predominantly in the black community. His story of growing up poor and white in South Boston reminds me of my own in the South Bronx. This is an honest, piercing tale. Once you read it, you will never look at our country the same way again.”
– Geoffrey Canada, Author of Fist Stick Knife Gun
“All Souls is the written equivalent of an Irish Wake, where revelers dance and sing the dead person’s praises. In that same style, the book leavens tragedy with dashes of humor but preserves the heartbreaking details.”
– Brent Staples, The New York Times Book Review
“If you were charmed by Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes . . . try All Souls: A Family Story from Southie, Michael Patrick MacDonald’s guileless and powerful memoir of precarious life and early death in Boston’s Irish Ghetto.”
– R. Z. Sheppard, Time Magazine
“An incendiary, moving book that startles on nearly every page.... MacDonald’s nimble prose and detailed recall of grim times long past make for luminous reading; his hard won conception of how ghettoized poverty spawns localized violence, and the dignity he brings to lives snuffed out in chaos, gives All Souls a moral urgency usually lacking in current memoir or crime prose. A remarkable work.”
– Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This powerful, moving memoir turns stereotypes into living, breathing, hurting people.”
– Booklist (starred review)
“A MUST READ . . . All Souls is poised to become one of the most significant Irish American books of the era.”
– Irish Edition
“All Souls covers ground nobody has covered before: it’s an insider’s tale told by a man who got out then returned, drawing a chilling link between “Irish Mafia” drug activity headed by a kingpin Whitey Bulger, and the deaths of young people whose lives were quickly forgotten.”
– The Irish Herald
“With every sentence, MacDonald seems to be working through his pain, searching for deeper meaning...This tough Irish American transforms hardship into hope.”
– Vibe magazine
“[A] rare and compelling book . . . Highly passionate . . . A few pages of this book do more to demolish popular myths about American poverty than a year’s worth of most newspapers’ coverage of welfare reform, drug crime and government statistics.”
– Chicago Tribune
“Lyrical, reflective, amusing, and wise.”
– Irish America magazine
“At pivotal moments, MacDonald’s prose – muscular and insistently alive – quivers like a fist about to take a swing.”
– San Francisco Chronicle
“Blistering scrapbook pages from a melancholy childhood.”
– Kirkus Reviews on Easter Rising
“Powerful.”
– Booklist on Easter Rising
"MacDonald courageously continues to break Southie’s silence in this tale that is as inspiring as it is haunting."
– Publishers Weekly on Easter Rising