A Collection of Friends

Review

Tryst Magazine, January 2005 ( http://www.tryst3.com/ )

Once you've read the stories in this fabulous collection, you'll realize you haven't lived life...not the way Tom Sheehan has with a ferocious, savage hold on that most tenuous of lives—memories. Collection is as good if not better than reading Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, or Christy Brown's My Left Foot. Although this is a book of short stories, Collection reads more like a novel. From "The Dumpmaster's Boy" to "Fred Rippon's Mushroom House," to the "Ghosts of Lily Pond," you'll want to journey to Saugus, a mystical "Shangri-La" that exists not just in this writer's world, but in the world of its readers. I never knew so much about how mushrooms were cultivated, or about billiards, or fishing, or gambling. There was such a time when, as the narrator's son posed, "Why do some football players from those times write poetry?" I heard myself answering, "because one has to love what is leaving them, not what stays": And as Johnny Igoe, the author's grandfather once left his beloved Ireland to forge ahead into the New World thus carrying Ireland with him, Tom Sheehan carries Saugus wherever he goes. Collection will fill you with its rich details, its insight, its loving portrayal of childhood, boyhood and friendship. Pick up this book today and know that there will be few books in your life that will embrace you, or you will embrace them, as deeply as Collection.~Tryst Editor