What's Going On???: 1970's Boston

Michael Patrick MacDonald’s “All Souls” is a memoir about a young boy’s life in South Boston ‘Southie’ during the 1970’s. Although MacDonald’s story is the main focus of this blog, we feel that it is necessary to provide some background on Southie at this time.

First, it is around the 70’s that Whitey Bulger is considered to be at his height. Starting in 1965, Whitey holds a prominent position in the Winter Hill gang and is to have thought to have been involved in several murders during this time. About ten years later, in 1975, it is believed that Bulger struck a deal which provides him with protection from the FBI in exchange for information. By 1978, the head of the Winter Hill gang is arrested, leaving Bulger as the head of the Winter Hill gang. After about 15 years as head of the Winter Hill gang, Bulger disappears for early 16 years.

After reading up a bit about Michael MacDonald it is clear that when he was about 8 or 9 he participated in the 1974 bus riots. These riots were centered around the desegregation of buses and schools. Articles written about this say that children would throw rocks at buses carrying black children to school. The segregation in Boston was different from other places in the country in the way that it wasn’t so much that blacks weren’t allowed in white school systems, it was that blacks and whites lived in different areas of Boston and therefore went to schools closer to their homes. Some maintain that both races got the same level of education.

1970’s also proved to be economically fruitful for Boston due to the many hospitals throughout Boston providing state of the art technology.

This is around the time where Michael MacDonald starts off his book, if any other event pop up throughout his book, I will be sure to blog about them!   

All Soul's Reviews: Overall Positive

Before beginning the book All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald, I decided to take a look at what others have said about the book and their opinion on it. Sometimes it’s best to go into a book blindly, feeling it out as you go. In this case, in which a large portion of the book is based on historical events, I felt it would be good to research further beforehand. I was interested in what other readers had to say about All Souls.
Firstly I didn't find many reviews from newspapers or professional sources. But from the reviews I did manage to find most of them started out giving a general premise for the book and then went on to tell their opinion.
From what I read in reviews, MacDonald recounts his story of growing up in Southie Boston in the 1970’s and 1980’s. From a young age he was exposed to an abundance of segregation, riots, and violence. As a child he witnessed firsthand how cruel and unforgiving the world could be. It seemed the only cards he was dealt where poverty and tragedy. A majority of his own siblings died a young ages from suicides, gang related violence, and murder. A review by Brent Staples in The New York Times states “''All Souls'' is the written equivalent of an Irish wake, where revelers dance and sing the dead person's praises.”
On all of the websites (Amazon, GoodReads, etc) I look at general reviews on, a majority of the readers seem to enjoy the book and it had high ratings. I’m really looking forward to getting deeper into the book. I’m especially interested to see what MacDonald’s writing is like. In another review, this one from Kirkus Reviews, the reviewer says “MacDonald’s nimble prose and detailed recall of grim times long past make for luminous reading; his hard-won conception of how ghettoized poverty spawns localized violence, and the dignity he brings to lives snuffed out in chaos, gives All Souls a moral urgency usually lacking in current memoir or crime prose. A remarkable work.”
Though I didn’t find many reviews, the ones I did find all seem to have positive things to say about the book. I didn’t really come across any readers who didn’t enjoy or generally like the story.