Glad I didn't pay full price for this. It could have been so much more than it was. It could have been like the classic "In America", "West Side Story" or "Angela's Ashes"; well actually any of the McCourt brothers books, or "Angels with Dirty Faces", yep, Mickey Rooney I can see as Dennis. I kept waiting for the spark, for something to make me cry, to make me laugh, something to take a hold of my beating heart and rip it from my chest. But no. It was lukewarm, tepid and mostly predictable, except where Dennis became a cowboy for a brief period, and there it could have veered off into Brokeback Mountain territory but it didn't. I couldn't really believe in the Irishness of it, - and I didn't learn anything I didn't already know about the Irish in America. Smith tried his best, it was his life, his memoir and he lived through tough times and learn't tough lessons before he got on the straight and narrow, to become someone people looked up to - but he should have employed a ghost writer. He's written several other books on firefighting maybe they have more spark.

I think I may have been a bit harsh with this review, for it is an interesting memoir of the 50's in New York, if you know nothing of that period.

1 of 25 books bought today for $10 (the lot).

loaned to pop ( )