The Banshees: A Literary History of Irish American Women (39 page)

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of the nation’s antifeminist move toward the fi n de siècle—her novels grow

darker yet more hybridized. Also set in New York’s Irish American commu-

nity, McDermott’s
Charming Billy
(1999) traces the relationships between

Billy and his long-suffering wife, Maeve; between Billy and the supposedly

deceased Eva; between the narrator’s father, Dennis, and his fi rst wife Claire;

between Dennis and Maeve; and between the narrator’s grandmother and

her two husbands, Uncle Dan and Mr. Holtzman—framed by the communi-

ty’s mourning of Billy’s death by telling stories of his life. In this case, death

and disintegration are due to the “Irish fl u”—alcoholism—a disease more

prevalent among Irish Americans than among the Irish themselves, presum-

ably as a means of preserving ethnic identity. Despite the church’s general

sanction of drinking, its concomitant “grim theology of fear” has perpetu-

ated such strong feelings of guilt and self loathing that among members of

Alcoholics Anonymous they are distinguished as CIA, “Catholic Irish Alco-

holic” (Dezell 2001, 118–24).

“Charming” Billy never gets that far. Billy is not a hero nor is his death

heroic—on the sidewalk, his stomach bloated, his skin discolored by cirrho-

sis—yet he is fondly and sentimentally recalled. A more likely hero is Dennis,

Billy’s cousin and best friend who repeatedly drags him home and carries

him to bed. But Dennis is also something of a cad. Although he matures

to become a responsible husband and father, early on he seduces Eva’s sis-

ter Mary with promises of marriage, treats her disrespectfully after she suc-

cumbs, and then breaks his promise after learning that Eva has married

someone else. Perhaps the most heroic character is Dennis’s father, Uncle

Dan, the streetcar driver who gave dozens of newly arrived “Paddys” a home

until they could afford their own. These characters are all engaging, but the

female characters are equally interesting.

The majority of the narrative is told by Dennis’s married daughter, Mrs.

West. Unlike her Irish and Irish American predecessors (such as Mary Gor-

don’s Isabel Moore), Mrs. West makes a conscious decision
not
to be “the

girl child wedded to the widowed father.” She goes away to college instead of

attending a local university and “took only short breaks during the summer

so that my father would know I had a life of my own. . . . Self-sacrifi ce hav-

ing been recognized as a delusion by then, not a virtue” (McDermott 1999,

153). After she marries, she and her husband move to Seattle. In other words,

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both her name and locale identify her as representative of third-generation

Irish Americans—much like McDermott herself—determined to assimilate,

fi rmly rooted in the “West.”

Billy’s widow, Maeve, demonstrates a modicum of agency. Although she

had been “the girl child wedded to the widowed [alcoholic] father” (153),

Maeve actively pursues Billy until he catches her. But after she marries Billy

her independence disappears as she slips even deeper into co-dependency.

She enables Billy’s drinking, calling Dennis to help carry him in, clean-

ing up after him, enduring “a thousand and one moments she would never

recount, things he had said to her, terrible things he had done, ways she

had seen him (toothless, incoherent, half-clothed, bloodied, soiled, weep-

ing) that she couldn’t begin to tell”—including the time “he had her by the

throat” (182–83). Because this revelation is followed by a description of Bil-

ly’s weepy contrition, it becomes a throwaway line, quickly buried beneath

fonder reminiscences.

Maeve suffers not only Billy’s alcoholism but also comparisons to Eva,

his former fi ancé. To many of their friends, Eva’s tragic death is the reason

Billy drinks, although Dennis (and the reader) know better. Eva is an exam-

ple of agency gone wrong. Although she never professes her love for Billy, she

accepts his engagement ring. Then she returns to Ireland, marries another

man, and uses the money Billy sends for her return passage to buy a gas sta-

tion for her husband. When Billy discovers her duplicity thirty years later,

Eva is still running the business. Through her character, McDermott sym-

bolizes the disappointment felt by some Irish American immigrants toward

Ireland as well as the sentimental view held by others. Eva’s sister Mary rep-

resents a more realistic view as well as a more positive example. As a teenager,

she emigrates to America alone and fi nds work as a nanny. Upon learning

her sister has deceived Billy, she cuts all ties; eventually she earns a college

degree, becomes a teacher, and remains in the States. Mary personifi es the

young Irish female immigrants who comprised the majority of America’s

teachers in the early twentieth century (Nolan 2004).

Considerably more complex and stronger-willed is Dennis’s mother,

known as Mrs. Holtzman, representative of the Scots-Irish immigrants. An

orphan, she is farmed from relative to relative, supporting herself at a bak-

ery until she quite pragmatically decides to escape by marrying Dan Lynch.

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After he dies, she meets and marries Holtzman—not for love, but because of

his fi nancial holdings. Mrs. Holtzman sees through the Irish sentimentality:

“She could dismantle a pose with a glance and defl ate the most romantic

notion with a single word . . . and she sought truth so single-mindedly

that under her steady gaze exaggeration, self-delusion, bravado simply dried

up and blew away, as did hope, nonsense, and any ungrounded giddiness”

(McDermott 1999, 45–45). She is clearly the toughest character in the novel;

however, by contrasting her with the Irish Catholics, her toughness becomes

equated with hardness and so she appears less than them.

In these couples’ relationships and the Irish American community’s

gathering, we fi nd feminist themes of connection, community, and hope for

the future. Ironically, these emerge out of a narrative formed around drunk-

enness, deception, and domestic violence. While such opposites suggest that

the title is not to be taken literally, they could also be interpreted as the

Irish preference for fi ction over fact. Adding to these dichotomies are role

reversal—using a female rather traditionally male storyteller—as well as the

interwoven themes of faith and sentimentality (Hagan 2010, 217–18). Billy

clings to his faith to assuage Eva’s loss, yet his belief in her has always been

romanticized. Dennis leaves the church after his wife’s death, but maintains

his devotion to Billy. His mother, the formerly pragmatic Mrs. Holtzman,

develops faith in her dying days. In the novel’s closing pages, the narrator

explains, “Their faith—all of them, I suppose—was no less keen than their

suspicion that in the end they might be proven wrong. And their certainty

that they would continue to believe anyway” (243). Such schizophrenia pro-

vides an apt metaphor for the century’s end.

Fin de Siècle/Fin de Feminism?

America’s struggles with feminism in the 1990s refl ected previous fi n de

siècle upheavals: “The death throes of a diseased society and the winding

down of an exhausted culture . . . the breakdown of the family, the decline

of religion, the women’s liberation and gay rights movement; the drug epi-

demic; and the redefi nition of the humanities” signaled—at least to the right

wing—“a waning culture” (Showalter 1990, 1–2). But embedded within

these portents lay a positive message, for all signs of doom were linked to

the growth of feminism, a contradiction familiar to the unruly feminist

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movement. Just as the 1890s were viewed optimistically by fi rst-wave femi-

nists, the 1990s ended with a determination among second-wavers to hold

fast to their “quest for personal autonomy and quality” (Segal 1999, 229).

By the end of the twentieth century, women’s novels were no longer

monolithic tales, as their stories expanded along with their world views.

From “sex wars” to sex change, from new versions of the family romance to

“altered defi nitions of the erotic,” the fi n de siècle female novelist addressed

new theories regarding the social construction of gender and the mutability

of identity, as well as the impossibility of closure. In sum, second-wave femi-

nists took traditional themes, plots, and characters beyond canonical (male)

conventions and made them their own. Such changes underscore “the mag-

nitude of the societal disruptions associated with the evolution of feminism

in this century” (Gilbert and Gubar 1989, 360–76).

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6

The New Millennium

End of an Era?

There was this attitude of, “Oh, we don’t need to hire women

anymore.” It was almost like throwing a switch and we were back

in the 50s. Across the country I was seeing what I saw decades ago.

—Susan Faludi,
The Terror Dream
(2007)

For many Americans, the al-Qaida attack on 9/11 marked the end of an

era. Although the Taliban had bombed American targets before and

George W. Bush had been warned they would strike again, 9/11 made the

terrorist threat a reality. In the aftermath, research abounded on Arabs, Mus-

lims, and Islam; terror and terrorism; and to a lesser extent, the impact on

health and safety. But 9/11 also brought about some surprisingly contradic-

tory changes:

• Although the U.S. government was the Taliban’s target, the Bush

administration responded by attacking women’s rights.

• While some pundits reacted with a return to the church, others

believed 9/11 marked the end of an era for Catholics.

• Whereas a grateful public embraced Irishness as personifi ed by the

New York police and fi refi ghters, New Irish emigrants were suddenly

personae non grata.

Even more surprising was the response of Irish American women writers.

Rather than fi ghting the latest feminist backlash, their novels and short stories

refl ected the nation’s schizophrenia. As women became the targets of post-

terrorist rage, a wave of post-feminist romance, detective, and fantasy novels

emerged featuring upper-middle-class spunky Irish American heroines who

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overcame all the odds only to marry. As the media urged women to return to

domesticity, formerly feminist writers began championing home and hearth,

marriage and motherhood. In response to the devotional revolution, some

second-wave feminists who had criticized the church began proselytizing.

Others simply sidestepped the issue. Following the logic of Emma Dono-

ghue, who defended her historical novels by noting that “‘new’ material . . . is

often best delivered to a wide readership in what seems like comfortingly old-

fashioned forms” (quoted in Moloney and Thompson 2003, 175)—a number

of Irish American second-wavers retreated to memoir and historical fi ction.

Nevertheless, as the decade progressed, loyal second-wavers continued to

remind readers that women’s rights were fragile, while angry third-wavers—

clearly tired of being viewed as delicate fl owers—loudly proclaimed their

independence by revealing a generation of young women suffering from

anger, depression, and low self-esteem. Finally, as the nation tired of Bush-

era greed, dishonesty, and warmongering, Irish American women writers

drew on their long tradition of satire to remind readers that there was more

to life than money and that these women, at least, had had enough of post-

9/11 intimidation.

Pushing Feminism off the Map

According to Susan Faludi, many of the nation’s pundits and leaders viewed

the collapse of the Twin Towers as “a symbol of the nation’s ‘emasculation.’”

Analyses of post-9/11 dreams revealed men’s fi xations on “the dreamer’s

shame” whereas women’s dreams dwelled on the fear of “masculine vio-

lence invading [their] lives” (2007, 9–11).1 Unfortunately, they were right.

As the sociologist Barbara Finlay recounts, immediately after taking offi ce,

George Bush—like Ronald Reagan—had begun removing liberal women

from administrative positions and dismantling feminist gains. Shortly after

his inauguration, he started “restructuring units whose missions affect