CONCRETE LEPRECHAUN

Walsh offers a gritty novel about a young man growing up in the Bronx in the 1970s.

A working-class Irish American enclave, centered on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx, is home to members of Jack McGee’s tightknit family, his friends Vinny and Brendan,and his two love interests, Mary and Angela. Street fights and displays of violent machismo constantly crop up during Jack’s leisure time and at the gas station and bar where he works. Much of the book is preoccupied with anecdotes about the funny and sometimes-dangerous drunks, thieves, and would-be criminals with whom Jack interacts while on duty. Racial tensions are high, as characters, including Jack, exchange racial slurs and macho insults as often as they resort to physical violence. As the demographics of the neighborhood change, conflicts motivated by bigotry are increasingly common. Jack’s nocturnal lifestyle and the chaos and violence of the neighborhood in which he lives take a toll on him as he ages. One brawl ends in a death,which causes him to seek solace from a priest and reflect on his way of life. Walsh’s characters’ extensive use of slurs is period-appropriate, but readers will find it uncomfortable, nonetheless. However, the author shows a talent for quick, sharp characterization and recounts events with the panache that calls to mind a seasoned bartender. Still, his dialogue is sometimes stilted and uncontrolled. Phrases such as “Father Death has many venues, and a vast repertoire of peril he did wield” may seek to poke fun at a character’s maudlin brogue, but ultimately come across as corny and inauthentic. Still, the novel offers a sometimes-compelling, self-mythologizing portrait of a man and a specific culture of ’70s New York. It does lean heavily on cliches, but like a bartender’s story, it doesn’t really matter if the plot twists are true or not.

An Irish American brawler’s tales grow tall in this unevenly executed tale.