A Good Catholic Girl & Other Tales — Michael Cooney

Each of these five stories by Michael Cooney appeared first on Amazon Kindle and are collected here for the first time in book form. The stories, sharing a common link to New York, are set in the twentieth century except for “You Don't Need a Weatherman” which imagines a near future in which climate change has drastically changed the upstate landscape. “The Wobbly & The Witch Girl” is set in the isolated world of the hill country people of Columbia County, known as Pondshiners, and focuses on their interaction with a young labor activist of the Industrial Workers of the World. The radicals Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca also appear in the tale. “The Real Twentieth Hijacker” takes place in the months prior to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The main character is a young Muslim immigrant who is nearly drawn into the 9-11 conspiracy. “Her Name Was Margarita” is loosely based on Fordham University's social service projects in Mexico during the 1960s. The characters are students of that era inspired by both their Catholic faith and the radical currents of the time. “A Good Catholic Girl” is based on the murder of a parochial school girl who sought desperately to avoid the unwanted attentions of a young man from a powerful Italian-American family. In this version of this tragedy, set in the Irish Catholic neighborhood of the North Bronx, she manages to turn the tables on her stalker.