While it is semi-interesting to see the social background of the impoverished Irish immigrant stock which settled in Ontario in the eighteen hundreds, the author's imagined "Lady in Black" and the subsequent hackneyed last-chapter explanation that the teller of the tale was really a ghost in the graveyard makes this an eminently avoidable piece of very poor literature indeed.įor anyone interested in the history surrounding the case of the Donnelly massacre, I suggest going through the Globe and Mail archives rather than wading through this tiresome bit of drivel. Part of that may be the awful facts surrounding the actual massacre of the Donnelly family, but most of the fault with this book lies with the author who has chosen to re-tell the story of this brutal episode in Canadian history in a style that can only be described as trite and tedious. The restless spirits of the Donnellys still seeking vengeance, is the explanation. It is described as the catalyst to the Donnelly fascination. Kelley is the first book ever published about the Donnelly massacre and the most famous. This, unfortunately, is one of those books.įrom the opening premise I struggled to find something, anything, to like about this book, but came away empty handed. A popular best seller since 1954, 'The Black Donnellys' by Thomas P. There are few books that I consider so poorly written and constructed that I would go out of my way to advise people to steer well clear of them.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |