All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
A New York Times bestseller, All Souls: A Family Story from Southie (Beacon Press, September 1999), won an American Book Award and New England Literary Lights Award, as well as the Myers Outstanding Book Award administered by the Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America.
With All Souls, MacDonald writes a gripping memoir about his life growing up in the Old Colony housing projects in South Boston, a predominantly white Irish Catholic neighborhood. He writes about the crime, drugs, and violence in his neighborhood in the years following Boston's busing riots, and of his brothers and sisters, several of whom fell prey to drugs, crime, and suicide. The book introduces his mother, Helen King, a feisty woman who raised her nine surviving children in the projects. The book often mentions Whitey Bulger, a gangster and FBI informant in Southie, who brought the drug trade into the neighborhood, contributing to the deaths of hundreds of young people leading to suicides, murders, and overdoses. Despite the turmoil, MacDonald writes about how proud and loyal the residents were in Southie.
Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under
Released in October 2006, Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up from Under continues MacDonald's personal story. It tells of his path out of Southie and the history of the 1980s punk subculture, punk ideologies, and post-punk music scenes. In addition, he speaks of meeting older family members.[3]
