An Irish Atrocity
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 1/31/2005
Peter Duffy, Irish-descended author of The Bielski Brothers, the story of Polish brothers who helped hundreds of Jews escape the extermination camps, looked homeward for another story of man's inhumanity to man, and tells it in a book he's calling The Stokestown Massacre.It's the story of an Anglo-Irish landlord who, at the time of the great Irish potato famine of 1845–1850, turned thousands of poor Catholics from their homes, to almost certain death. He was denounced from the local pulpit and murdered by a group of outraged parishioners. Duffy's own great-great-grandfather was driven from the country by the famine. HarperCollins executive editor Dan Conaway bought Duffy's story, North American rights, from agent Mary Evans, for delivery next year.
