Mary O'Grady Author:Mary Lavin As a newly married young bride in Dublin, Mary O'Grady takes a daily stroll to deliver a hot lunch to her husband, Tom, at work in the tram barn. Her walk takes her past the Grand Canal, a place which reminds her of the rural area where she grew up. As the babies come - Patrick, Ellie, Angie, Larry, and Rosie - she ignores her neighbor's offer t... more »o help with the children. She finds a pram good company, and besides, the children give her good cause to linger on the canal edge that glows with "the full splendour of a country meadow." The O'Gradys are Catholics whose faith runs through their veins like their blood, unquestioned and rarely celebrated. Mary's inner life is full and rich with the cares of her home and children; she allows no shadows or even a dangerous word like "delicate" to fall on them: "Let there be no talk about delicacy. That word was like a curse... If a boy or a girl had any little weakness the best thing to do was to fight against it." But life brings painful changes that even Mary's heroic efforts cannot avert. Written in deliberate and sensitive prose, Mary O'Grady is a moving and hard-to-put-down novel about one Irish Catholic woman and her love for her family. -- Jesse Larsen« less