The St. Louis–born author Marian O’Shea Wernicke has spent much of her time over the past decades in Florida and Texas, but she took inspiration from her family’s local history when writing her latest novel, Out of Ireland. The author of Toward That Which Is Beautiful and Tom O’Shea: A 20th Century Man already has plenty of experience crafting stirring historical narratives, but in Out of Ireland, out now from She Writes Press, Wernicke drew from the life of her own great-grandmother in creating protagonist Eileen.
O’Shea Wernicke’s novel follows 16-year-old Eileen and her older brother, Michael, as they face struggles including an unwanted marriage to an older man, political violence and rebellion, and the choice to leave Bantry, Ireland, for America. Their departure brings them across the Atlantic and, ultimately, to St. Louis. Far from their native Ireland, they discover that leaving British oppression back home wasn’t the last of their problems. Some readers, particularly those whose roots also stretch back to the Emerald Isle, may recognize echoes of their own immigrant matriarchs’ stories in Eileen’s strength and perseverance.
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As Patrick Murphy, author of The Irish in St. Louis: From Shanty to Lace Curtain, noted: “Many Irish Americans will see the stories of their own families in these pages. Wernicke skillfully brings life to history as her characters make the difficult passage from troubled Ireland to St. Louis’ infamous Kerry Patch.”
Readers of historical fiction, romance, and character-driven drama will all find something to latch onto in Wernicke’s family-inspired novel.
