In 1974, when Ann Ahern begins her junior year of high school, South Boston is in crisis — Catholic mothers are blockading buses to keep Black children from the public schools, and teenagers are raising havoc in the streets. Ann, an outsider in her own Irish-American community, is infatuated with her beautiful French teacher, Mademoiselle Eugenie, who hails from Paris but is of African descent. Spurred by her adoration for Eugenie, Ann embarks on a journey that leads her beyond South Boston, through the fringes of the Black Power movement, toward love, and ultimately to the truth about herself.
In this ambitious and arresting novel, Stephanie Grant's searing prose, powerful storytelling, and richly drawn characters bring tumultuous moment in American history into perfect focus.
"Map of Ireland is one of those novels that unexpectedly fell into my lap and I was immediately hooked. I could not put this book down. Riveting, clear-eyed, brutally honest, Grant's story draws us into the Boston racial crisis brought to a head during the busing campaigns in the seventies. In the midst of this struggle, out steps Ann Ahern -- one of the most disarming, haunted, and gorgeously conflicted narrators to come along in years. You will love this girl. Ann Ahern will charm you; disarm you. She will enrage you, but she will never let you go." -- Alison Smith, author of Name All the Animals
