The Rat-pit - Couverture souple

MacGill, Patrick

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1902602552 ISBN 13 : 9781902602554

Editeur : New Island Books, 2001

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Jf INTRODUCTION IN the city of Glasgow there is a lodging-house for women known as The Rat-pit. Here the vagrant can get a nightly bunk for a few pence, and no female is refused admittance: the unfortunate, the sick, and work-weary congregate under the same roof, breathe the same fetid air and forget the troubles of a miserable existence in strong drink, the solace of the sorrowful, or in heavy stupor, the slumber of the toilworn. The underworld, of which I have seen and known such a lot, has always appeared to me as a Greater Rat-pit, where human beings, pinched and poverty-stricken and ground down with a weight of oppression, are hemmed up like the plague-stricken in a pest-house. It is in this larger sense that I have chosen the name for the title of Norah Ryan sstory. By committing the great sin and subsequently by allowing the dictates of motherhood to triumph over decrees of society, she became a pariah eternally doomed to the Greater Rat-pit. Whilst my former book, Children of the Dead End, was on the whole accepted as giving a picture of the life of the navvy, there were some who refused to believe that scenes such as I strove to depict could exist in a country like ours. To them I venture the assurance that The Rat-pit is a transcript from life and that most of the characters are real people, and the scenes only too poignantly true.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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Présentation de l'éditeur

Set in the Ireland and Scotland of the early 1900s, and based on real events, The Rat-Pit is the tragic story of Norah Ryan, a devout and intelligent Donegal girl who leaves her homeland after the death of her father, hoping to find a better life 'across the water'. Unable to escape the cycle of grinding poverty, Norah's fate is further sealed when she becomes pregnant by Alec Morrison, the son of the farmer on whose land she lives and works in such appalling conditions. Despite his high ideals and progressive views on social justice, Alex callously abandons her and, too proud to accept his begrudging offer of financial help, she finds herself bitterly ostracised. More than the story of one woman's decline and death, The Rat-Pit is also a grim and unflinchingly realistic portrayal of the Irish immigrant experience in Scotland, as well as a savage critique of a Church and society that did its best to crush those who could scarcely be more vulnerable and disadvantaged.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: New Island Books
• Date d'édition: 2001
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1902602552
• ISBN 13: 9781902602554
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible