The Parish and the Hill

Told from the vantage point of a young woman who grows to maturity in a New England mill town in the 1920s, The Parish and the Hill portrays three generations of an Irish immigrant family in their urge to negotiate multiple identities. Mary O’Connor is the product of a family and a town divided by the conflicting values of the "shanty" and "lace-curtain" Irish.

Originally published in 1948, The Parish and the Hill is now identified as one of the finest works of Irish American fiction, and one of the first to explore Irish life from a woman's point of view. Brilliant and powerful on the themes of alienation, social class, and alcoholism, the novel offers complex and unforgettable portraits of the love between grandfather and granddaughter, mother and children, sister and brother.