Book Reviews - A selection of recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest

Memoir

In Colin Broderick’s Orangutan, we first encounter the author as a fresh-faced Irish immigrant who arrives in New York for a clean start, away from the horrors of life in County Tyrone and the discrimination and drunkenness in London. But as he describes the beast inside him that emerges when he drinks, the reader is introduced to the orangutan: the inhuman part of Broderick that emerges when he abuses drugs and alcohol, and engages in shockingly dangerous behavior. His bouts of sobriety range from hours to years, all while the beast inside of him is poised to break through. 
In the twenty years that the memoir spans, Broderick marries and divorces two women, works in seemingly all areas of construction, and travels throughout the United States. 
Broderick’s account of his life is astoundingly unapologetic, and this is fitting for the memoir. It is not a story of redemption, of a man who realizes his mistakes and then sets out to fix them. Broderick does not want pity. He simply wants to tell a story, something he strives to do throughout his time in New York and finally accomplishes
in the darkest recesses of his final detoxification. It is honest, moving and at times heart-wrenching. Orangutan is, at its core, a story of a man who spent two decades fighting the beast inside of him and surviving life as he did so.               – Kerman Patel
($14.00 / 256 pages / Three Rivers Press)
 

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