Pete McCarthy established one cardinal rule of travel in hisbestselling debut, McCarthy's Bar: "Never pass a bar withyour name on it." In this equally wry and insightful follow-up,his characteristic good humor, curiosity, and thirst for adventuretake him on a fantastic jaunt around the world in search of hisIrish roots -- from Morocco, where he tracks down the unlikelychief of the McCarthy clan, to New York, and finally to remote Mc-Carthy, Alaska. The Road to McCarthy is a quixotic and anything-but-typical Irish odyssey that confirms Pete McCarthy's status asone of our funniest and most incisive writers.
From Publishers Weekly
In the bestselling McCarthy's Bar, McCarthy had one rule: never pass a bar with your name on it. In Road it's: never pass a part of the world with your name in or on it. Thus this genealogist-cum-pint-swilling adventurer embarks on a frolicsome, drunken globe-trot to uncover the roots of all things McCarthy and in the process expose what it means to be a McCarthy and, by extension, to be Irish. It's a lively, lusty quest; McCarthy travels like a Renaissance explorer with a film director's lens. In Tangiers, he finds a Moroccan McCarthy who puts a unique spin on the term "black Irish." He takes in America's premier Irish event, New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade (which he finds more Celtic and American than Irish and not a little Scottish besides). Next stop: Tasmania, the penal colony where so many Irish were sent by the British government. And how could he resist a visit to the town of McCarthy, Alaska, population 18? The ultimate mocking tour guide with acerbic charm, McCarthy delivers scathing critiques of people and places, himself included. His droll and often drunken existentialist view proffers a unique (and distinctly Irish) perspective on the world that is part history, part McCarthy's Law. Some may be put off by his frequent references to drugs, sex and overimbibing, but McCarthy is like a character out of contemporary Irish literature, a traveler on a winding road surrounded by life's imperfections yet finding them beautiful despite it all (especially after a pint or two). Photos, maps. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
Pete McCarthy established one cardinal rule of travel in hisbestselling debut, McCarthy's Bar: "Never pass a bar withyour name on it." In this equally wry and insightful follow-up,his characteristic good humor, curiosity, and thirst for adventuretake him on a fantastic jaunt around the world in search of hisIrish roots -- from Morocco, where he tracks down the unlikelychief of the McCarthy clan, to New York, and finally to remote Mc-Carthy, Alaska. The Road to McCarthy is a quixotic and anything-but-typical Irish odyssey that confirms Pete McCarthy's status asone of our funniest and most incisive writers.
From Publishers Weekly
In the bestselling McCarthy's Bar, McCarthy had one rule: never pass a bar with your name on it. In Road it's: never pass a part of the world with your name in or on it. Thus this genealogist-cum-pint-swilling adventurer embarks on a frolicsome, drunken globe-trot to uncover the roots of all things McCarthy and in the process expose what it means to be a McCarthy and, by extension, to be Irish. It's a lively, lusty quest; McCarthy travels like a Renaissance explorer with a film director's lens. In Tangiers, he finds a Moroccan McCarthy who puts a unique spin on the term "black Irish." He takes in America's premier Irish event, New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade (which he finds more Celtic and American than Irish and not a little Scottish besides). Next stop: Tasmania, the penal colony where so many Irish were sent by the British government. And how could he resist a visit to the town of McCarthy, Alaska, population 18? The ultimate mocking tour guide with acerbic charm, McCarthy delivers scathing critiques of people and places, himself included. His droll and often drunken existentialist view proffers a unique (and distinctly Irish) perspective on the world that is part history, part McCarthy's Law. Some may be put off by his frequent references to drugs, sex and overimbibing, but McCarthy is like a character out of contemporary Irish literature, a traveler on a winding road surrounded by life's imperfections yet finding them beautiful despite it all (especially after a pint or two). Photos, maps.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
McCarthy is one very funny man, and this is one very funny book. We last heard from him in the equally hilarious McCarthy's Bar (2001), in which he was searching for his Irish roots in Ireland. The journey continues, but now the indefatigable Anglo-Irishman expands his horizons to jaunt about the globe, from unlikely Tangier to that traditional Irish bastion, New York. As his readers well know, McCarthy will go anywhere and everywhere as long as a pint (or two) in a cozy pub awaits at journey's end. He risks life and limb, such as when he faces, with utmost courage, a rabid crowd of drunken Scots Catholic soccer fans, come from Glasgow to celebrate Paddy's Day in Manhattan. Betimes he stays closer to home, at an Ireland versus England rugby match in Dublin, for instance, but really, how can he resist visiting Tasmania, Montserrat, Butte (Montana), and a tiny (population 18) Alaskan town that somehow bears his name? Infectiously funny. June Sawyers
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