The Banshees: A Literary History of Irish American Women (32 page)

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In the novel’s closing chapters the narrator plumbs the depths of her

mother’s depression, describing her as “so wrapped up in her own melan-

choly that she could neither see nor hear me” (Ezekial 1984, 232). Con-

trary to Fanning’s assertion that Ezekiel’s persona converts to Judaism out

of revenge, she writes that she married her Jewish husband because she “was

young and dumb and didn’t know much and . . . partly because he wasn’t

loud or boorish and occasionally dangerous the way [her Irish American

brother] sometimes got when he’d been drinking” (203). Religion is not

the problem. “We seldom fought. Instead, that tedious voice of his wore

me down—abraded the edges of my being, shut me down and caged me in.

Inside, I grew small and lonely and quiet and found it increasingly diffi cult

to breathe” (211). Taking her problems to a psychiatrist, the narrator receives

typical pre-feminist advice: “to the degree that I wasn’t contented with my

life and wanted more, I was rejecting my role as a woman . . . furthermore,

I should learn to derive my pleasure and satisfaction from watching others

grow” (213).

Jean McGarry’s
Airs of Providence
continues in this vein. The characters’

lives are unsatisfactory, inadequate, and unrewarding, their families “eaten

up by the same problems of isolation, loss, and emptiness” (Lee 2008,

221).
Airs of Providence
is divided into two sections. The fi rst features eight

unrelated short stories describing “people who are dead, dying, sick, and

hoping and planning to die” (Lee 2008, 222); the second presents seven

interrelated stories recounting the lives of April and Margaret Flanaghan,

who feel alienated from their environment as well as their religion. Similarly,

McGarry’s
The Very Rich Hours
(1987) details the very unhappy life of Anne

Marie Kane. Divided into eight chapters or “hours,” the book follows Kane

throughout her formative years from child to coed to wife as she grows

increasingly alienated from family and friends.

Unlike these novels, Susan Minot’s
Monkeys
initially seems ostenta-

tiously Catholic. When it appeared in 1986, the
Chicago Tribune
blurb

gushed, “Striking and original. . . . Few novels have so powerfully displayed

the collective unity and joy of family life.” Clearly, the reviewer had not read

many Irish American women’s novels, or closely read this one.
Monkeys
, the

name Rosie Vincent applies to her brood—“seven of them one right after

another” (Minot 1986, 61)—tells the story of the Irish Catholic Vincent

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family’s interactions. Early on, there are hints that Mr. Vincent is an alco-

holic, as he periodically disappears or passes out. When the children fi nally

confront him about his drinking, he agrees to quit, but minutes later pops

open a beer. Mrs. Vincent, “Mum,” says and does nothing about this; her

role is to bear children. This is most tellingly revealed shortly after the birth

of the last child. As Mrs. Vincent prepares to nurse the baby, Caitlin and

Sophie “saw it—that wild look—only this time there was something added.

It was aimed at them and it said: There is nothing in the world compares

with this. The eye was fi erce. The baby stayed fast. There is nothing so thrill-

ing as this. Nothing” (73).

Apart from Mr. Vincent’s alcoholism, marriage and motherhood seem

great. The seven children rarely squabble; when they get into trouble, there

are no consequences. Even Mrs. Vincent’s death is introduced offhandedly:

“Caitlin and Delilah are blabbing away in the kitchen. . . . The girls never

stop talking, worrying about their boyfriends, worrying about Dad, always

having fi ts—especially since their mother died” (Minot 1986, 109). The

fact that the older girls take over their mother’s job of cooking, cleaning,

and caring for their father and brothers does not mean all is well; rather,

it refl ects a continuation of the patriarchal hierarchy. Through this plot,

Minot seems to imply that the Catholic structure perpetuates the tradi-

tional sex-gender system: “the reproduction of these relations in conscious-

ness, in social practice, and in ideology turns especially on the organization

of family, kinship, and marriage, of sexuality, and of the division of all sorts

of labor by gender” (Del Rosso 2005, 1). This message only grows darker

in Minot’s subsequent novels.

The convergence of second-wave feminism with the post-Vatican church

practically ensured the emergence of women’s fi ction about the American

Catholic experience. The result was a second model of the Catholic novel

in the 1980s, “one of personal process” or as Andrew Greeley termed it,

the “personalist movement.” Not surprisingly, in this model personal needs

override religious beliefs (Gandolfo 1992, 157). Elaine Ford’s novels,
The

Playhouse
(1980) and
Missed Connections
(1984), are somber looks at young

women’s attempts to escape the vicissitudes of family life. Likewise, Maura

Stanton’s short stories in
The Country I Come From
(1988) are told from the

point of view of a daughter in a large Irish Catholic family. “The Palace”

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150 | T H E B A N S H E E S

recalls the narrator’s experience at her cousin’s wedding. What is supposed

to be a fairy tale event actually exposes woman’s lot: the narrator is accosted

by an exhibitionist in the basement, stumbles into rooms of hot tired women

doing the hotel laundry, and recoils from her aunts’ envy and exhaustion.

Disillusioned, she realizes, “I knew even less about everything than I ever

had” (Stanton 1988, 57).

“John McCormack” extends disillusion to the church. First the narra-

tor learns that her visiting uncle is a recovering alcoholic; next, she and her

siblings witness the recovery of a drowned body. To comfort the children,

their uncle suggests praying for the dead woman and lighting a candle for

her soul. But when they arrive at the church none of the candles are lit and

the parish priest orders them to leave so he can lock the doors. When they

do fi nally light a candle, the priest tells them to put it out because it’s a fi re

hazard. “‘I know you lit it for a soul. Very nice. But it’s not the candle that

counts, it’s the prayer behind it.’” When the uncle persists, saying, “‘I always

thought it was the candle, Father,’” the priest retorts, “‘It’s only a pretty

custom’” (Stanton 1988, 69).

These Catholic-centered works hint at the role of the church in the late

twentieth century. Although American Catholics were willing to identify

with their faith, they made their own decisions “in matters of conscience”

(Labrie 1997, 268). Such actions suggest that the personalist revolution had

gained ground among American Catholics, no doubt a reaction, in part, to

the church’s intransigence with regard to women’s rights. The result, at least

among women writers, is a sense that “recent American Catholic fi ction writ-

ers have been unable to propose a ‘viable new paradigm’” (277) in which to

reconcile feminism with Catholicism. Instead, the Catholic faith has increas-

ingly been relegated to “a pretty custom,” a remembrance of things past.

•

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the 1980s reports of feminism’s demise

were greatly exaggerated. Despite the heavy-handed attempts of the Reagan

administration, the women’s movement actually expanded in number and

emphasis, moving into mainstream politics, recognizing the need for diver-

sity, and supporting women’s rights. “The second wave maintained enough

headway to avoid death by discouragement, and it was in no danger of expir-

ing from a surfeit of success,” writes the historian Flora Davis. Nevertheless,

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by the end of the 1980s, “it was clear that feminism would be around for a

long time to come” (Davis 1991, 472).

This decade marked the point at which women’s writing began to be

recognized and respected, supported by millions of female readers, explored

by feminist scholars, and refl ecting the impact of feminism (Showalter 2009,

467). Of course, Ronald Reagan helped. Thanks to his war on women, the

banshees once again banded together to refute the administration’s anti-

feminist messages. Not all women should be mothers, nor should lesbians

be denied the right. Teenagers should not be forced to take on motherhood,

but working mothers should not be punished for supporting their families.

Through their novels they argued that women—and mothers—were as mul-

tifaceted as feminism and Catholicism.

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5

The 1990s

Fin de Siècle

“You get set like that with a guy, and happy, and you turn into

one of those little wooden dolls, one of those awful smiling nod-

ding ones with springs for necks.” She began to bounce her head

up and down in imitation. “You turn into a pea brain.”

—Jacqueline Carey,
Good Gossip

Thanks to the tireless efforts of feminist groups, the 1990s began on

fi rm footing. At the national level, Washington, DC, was full of PACs

and women’s coalitions. Internationally, feminists were working toward

peace, welfare rights, and health care for women with AIDS. This decade

saw growth in women’s art shows, women’s studies programs, hotlines for

abortion and domestic abuse, and shelters for the homeless. Females also

made signifi cant inroads into traditionally male careers such as law enforce-

ment, medicine, and the law (Davis 1991, 492–93).

Women were beginning not only to recognize their rights but also, and

more important, to fi ght for them. In September 1991, sexual harassment

entered the national spotlight. First the Tailhook scandal hit the airwaves

after eighty-seven female and seven male Navy retirees complained of sex-

ual assaults and harassment at their annual reunion in Las Vegas. Next, the

country watched Anita Hill testify against Clarence Thomas before Con-

gress. After observing male politicians’ crude questioning of Ms. Hill, the

National Organization for Women was fl ooded with members and women

began running for political offi ce in record numbers). As the nation raised

its consciousness, the number of sexual harassment suits fi led with the

1 5 2

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EEOC doubled—and women actually began to win (Brownmiller 1999,

293). Three years later these issues again dominated the headlines when it

was revealed that President Bill Clinton had had sexual relations with the

twenty-two-year-old intern Monica Lewinsky. Subsequently, even women’s

magazines, the barometers of popular culture, began featuring articles on

sexual harassment.

Women were making advances in other arenas as well. In 1992, the

“Year of the Woman,” Hillary Rodham Clinton became the fi rst, First Lady

to have a career to put on hold during her husband’s presidency. The Clinton

cabinet included Janet Reno, the fi rst female attorney general; Madeleine

Albright, the fi rst female secretary of state; and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the

second woman to join the Supreme Court. As of 1993, women were allowed

in combat. In sports, women’s softball debuted at the 1996 Olympics, and

in 1999 the U.S. women’s soccer team won the World Cup. Refl ecting Irish

Americans’ political diversity, the Democrat Patty Murray was one of four

women elected to the United States Senate, followed by the Republican Kay

Bailey Hutchison a year later. From 1993 to 1998, Jean Kennedy Smith

served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland, where she played a major role in the

Good Friday Agreement (Almeida 2006, 561). In
Irish America’s
“Business

100” listing of the most successful Irish Americans in the country, Margaret

Duffy, the audit partner at Arthur Andersen, was the sole woman among

New Yorkers (Almeida 2001, 93).

Within the Kennedy family alone, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was

elected Maryland’s lieutenant governor, Courtney Kennedy Hill worked as a

human rights activist, Rory Kennedy achieved acclaim for her documentary

fi lms, Carolyn Kennedy Schlossberg became a legal scholar and attorney,