A Pocket Full of Shells, the title, refers to a baby daughter's gift for her father who's gone across the Irish sea to earn money for the family, a gift picked by the little toddler herself and sent through her mother who visits him when she receives a message about his being ill.
The book is first in a series of four, beginning with the year of potato blight and starvation added to travails generated by human greed of occupation by others in Ireland - which the author is careful to avoid referring to, mentioning kandlords but not England as cause of the misery. Its the story of her great-grandmother written in a novel form and telling about poverty and starvation in Ireland that forced many to migrate across to England or U.S., often paid by the landlords to migrate so the land would be free for the sheep or cattle.
A Pocket Full of Shells is at once a romantic gift from a child and a deep significant symbol of roots of the Irish to the land and sea. Often heart breaking in the terse description of poverty and starvation, it's nevertheless upbeat about human endeavour and hopes.
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May 27, 2020 - May 30, 2020.
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