The Mrs. Browne trilogy became an instant bestselling success in author Brendan O'Carroll's native Ireland. Similarly, when Plume introduced The Mammy (the first book in the series, May 1999) in the United States, it was greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm from American readers. Fans of Agnes Browne craving further hilarious and heartwarming adventures will be delighted with The Chisellers. Agnes, the lovable and determined heroine, returns with her seven children—whom she affectionately calls "the chisellers"—all struggling to make their way in the world with varying degrees of success. To make matters more difficult, as Agnes struggles along the bumpy road of parenting, she learns that the family is about to be forced out of their tenement home in the name of urban renewal. Pierre, Agnes' persistent suitor, is thankfully on hand to console her. Like all good Irish stories, The Chisellers includes a wedding and a funeral, much laughter and some tears—and it is sure to please newcomers as well as loyal fans of this terrific series.

Amazon.com Review

In his introduction to this second episode in the rollicking trilogy that began with The Mammy (1994), Brendan O'Carroll explains that his greatest surprise and pleasure, in the wake of his newfound literary success, was meeting people who told him it was the first book they had ever read. And it's easy to imagine how new readers would be drawn in by engaging, larger-than-life characters, colorful dialogue, and high-spirited plot. The Chisellers opens in 1970, with the widow Agnes Browne still struggling to raise her brood (the chisellers of the title) alone, although the broad-shouldered Mark is now an apprentice carpenter and Rory, his gay brother, is an apprentice hair stylist. Agnes may be too caught up in her exciting bingo win of 310 pounds to notice that little Dermot is developing a dangerous taste for shoplifting, but she frequently wrings her hands over Frankie, a neo-Nazi thug who has been expelled from school. Into this flurry of daily concerns and excitements comes a letter from the local housing authority, notifying her that all the indigent families in her neighborhood are being relocated from their shabby but familiar tenements in the center of Dublin to new houses in a distant suburb. At the sad but raucous farewell party at the pub, Agnes sits drinking cider "in her usual corner," remembering her best friend, Marion, who died three years before: "Ah Jaysus, Marion, listen to them!" she muses. "The music of The Jarro! Will we ever hear the likes of it again?"

The music to which Agnes referred could not be played on any instrument, but was the cackle of voices and rhythmic banter of the inner-city folk, the symphony of unanswered questions and impossible statements, that were so much of the colour of Dublin: "Hey, Mr. Foley. A vodka with ice--and fresh ice, none of that frozen stuff!" This would be followed by a howl of laughter.

As you read, it is impossible not to envision a feel-good film of The Chisellers (Anjelica Huston directed The Mammy) and to admire O'Carroll's comic skill, even if his sunny, too-tidy conclusion to the novel makes Frank McCourt read like Dostoyevsky. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

By turns funny, wise and heartbreaking, this Irish Tales of the City is O'Carroll's second book in his Mrs. Browne trilogy; the first, The Mammy, received high praise after publication in the U.S. last year. Featuring eccentric characters who are charming, irreverent and believable, the story continues in 1973 with Agnes Browne at center stage. A widow raising six sons and a daughter, whom she refers to collectively as the "chisellers," she lives in public housing in inner-city Dublin. Agnes is no angel, which makes her all the more human; she chain-smokes, likes a pint or two of an evening and has a sweet-dispositioned boyfriend, a French immigrant named Pierre, who works at a pizza joint and is endlessly patient with Agnes and her rambunctious brood. Mark Browne is the oldest; at 17, he is apprenticed to a furniture-maker whose business is failing. How Mark saves the business and wins the girl of his dreams inform the main storyline, but each of the siblings and Agnes get their fair share of attention. Frankie, the next in age, is involved with violent local skinheads. After he and his gang brutally beat his younger brother, Rory, a subsequent act further tarnishes Frankie's reputation and outrages his family. This lively novel features a wedding, a funeral and an ending that will melt the hardest heart. Readers will eagerly await the third book in this series. (Mar.) FYI: The film version of The Mammy, starring Anjelica Huston, is currently in release.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Before she was a Mammy, before she had Chisellers, and before they made her a Granny, Agnes Browne was Agnes Reddin, a young girl-or a Young Wan- growing up in the Jarro in Dublin. Brendan O'Carroll takes readers back to the heart of working-class Dublin, this time in the 1940s. Together with her soon to be lifelong best friend Marion Delany, young Agnes manages to survive the indignities and demands of Catholic school, the unwanted births of siblings, days spent in the factories and markets, and nights in the dance hall as rock-and-roll invades Dublin.But on the eve of her wedding night, the Jarro is alive with gossip—will Agnes be turned away at the altar? For the whole parish knows Agnes's not-so-well-kept secret. And with a mother falling further into dementia, and a younger sister turning to a life of crime, it's up to Agnes alone to keep her splintering family together, while trying to create one of her own. Filled with O'Carroll's trademark wicked wit and loving, larger-than-life characters, The Young Wan shows the hardscrabble beginnings of the ultimate Irish mother and family.

From Library Journal

What was tough young Dublin widow Agnes Browne doing before she starred in her own trilogy by Irish comedian O'Carroll?
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An almost surefire winner . . . one of those books that demands to be read in one sitting."
-- The Irish Voice

"Mammy" is what Irish children call their mothers and The Mammy is Agnes Browne--a widow struggling to raise seven children in a North Dublin neighborhood in the 1960s. Popular Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll chronicles the comic misadventures of this large and lively family with raw humor and great affection. Forced to be mother, father, and referee to her battling clan, the ever-resourceful Agnes Browne occasionally finds a spare moment to trade gossip and quips with her best pal Marion Monks (alias "The Kaiser") and even finds herself pursued by the amorous Frenchman who runs the local pizza parlor. Like the novels of Roddy Doyle, The Mammy features pitch-perfect dialogue, lightning wit, and a host of colorful characters. Earthy and exuberant, the novel brilliantly captures the brash energy and cheerful irreverence of working-class Irish life.

Amazon.com Review

It seems like there's no end to Irish tales depicting unhappy, squalid childhoods in crowded, working-class flats. While Brendan O'Carroll's The Mammy maintains many elements of the traditional genre--the saintly, overworked mother, the Catholic family with an enormous posse of children and any number of abusive alcoholic fathers--it's a somewhat cheerier vision of Irish youth than we've come to expect. The mammy in question, one Agnes Browne, has enough spunk to look after her brood of seven, run a fruit stand at the local open market, gossip viciously with her best friend Marion, and still daydream about dancing with a famous singer. This is in large part due to the fact that her husband, Redser, who falls squarely into the above-mentioned category, has died--thanks to a careless driver--just before the novel's opening pages. Our first glimpse of the pragmatic, lovable Agnes comes as she's waiting in the social services office on the afternoon of his death, determined not to lose a penny of her widow's benefits as a result of dilly-dallying. She doesn't even have the necessary death certificate yet, but that's not nearly enough to slow down Agnes Brown: "No, love, he's definitely dead. Definitely," she says to the clerk, then, turning to her friend for backup, "Isn't he, Marion?" Marion, made from the same tough stock, agrees solemnly: "Absolutely. I know him years, and I've never seen him look so bad. Dead, definitely dead!" The scene is emblematic: Agnes knows how to fight, and she isn't afraid to do it. Her deadpan humor becomes a hallmark.As for her children, they get into the usual trouble--fights, girl problems, and the like. But there are also some charming, unexpected episodes in the book. For example, Agnes's oldest child meets a Jewish man and performs small tasks for him on the Sabbath, which eventually leads to greater goods. Among other things, Mark learns about the Jewish faith, new knowledge he accepts with bemusement and some of his mother's innocence and good humor. Upon hearing that the man doesn't celebrate Christmas, he exclaims: "Will yeh go on outta that! How can yeh not believe in something when it's real?"The book is not without its share of tragedy, but Agnes takes it all with aplomb. She's clearly the glue that binds her pack of youngsters together: "The rule in the Browne family was: 'You hit one, you hit seven.' Since March twenty-ninth and Redser's demise, little had changed in the Browne house. If anything, the house was less tense." The Mammy is a slight book--it tells the simple, fairly conventional tale of a single Irish family--but it makes up for its gaps with humanity, in the same way Agnes Browne makes up for what she and her children lack. --Melanie Rehak

From Publishers Weekly

In his first novel, Irish playwright and stand-up comedian O'Carroll mines the same material (Irish humor and gritty upbringing) as the novels that spawned the movies he's acted in: Roddy Doyle's The Van and the upcoming film version of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. A tribute to O'Carroll's mother, the narrative is set in the working-class Dublin of the 1960s, where Agnes Browne (the Mammy) works a fruit and vegetable stall with her best friend, Marion Monks, but dreams of dancing with suave singer Cliff Richard. And Agnes needs all the romance she can get as a sexually na?ve, newly widowed beauty raising seven kids on her own. Agnes helps her eldest son, Mark, negotiate puberty and search for a job, while defending her other children from sadistic nuns, gossipy neighbors, depression and each other. She also finds time to date the Frenchman who owns the local pizza parlor. When Marion is diagnosed with cancer, she and Agnes get as daring as their stations in life allow: Marion takes driving lessons and Agnes tries to buy a ticket to a Cliff Richard concert. By novel's end, each has made peace with her dreams. Like stand-up comics, the characters here are more clever and glib than ordinary people, but these Dubliners are also irresistibly charming as they face their daily scrapes and heartbreaks. Tales of working-class Irish life now fill bookshelves, but there's space aplenty for O'Carroll's sturdy contribution. (May) FYI: The Mammy launches a trilogy that will include future Plume titles The Chisellers and The Granny. Meanwhile, O'Carroll will appear in a film version of The Mammy starring Anjelica Huston.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.