Authors Get Yuletide Chance To 'Give and Get'

As we conclude the 12 days of Christmas, Hell’s Kitchen presents a new feature. Throughout the year, we have met many prominent authors. This year we asked which book each author would like to receive for Christmas, and which they would like to give to a friend. Some surveyed were from academia, others are ink-stained wretches. Please feel free to log in under the comments feature here to leave your own entries.

Paul Muldoon signs at Glucksman Ireland House in November. Photo by Patricia Jameson-Sammartano

So, without further ado, here are our authors' replies:
(Click on the titles for more info on the books or to buy them.)

Dan Cassidy ("The Secret Language of the Crossroad: How the Irish Invented Slang," forthcoming in 2007) would give "Hour of the Cat" by Peter Quinn and would like to receive "William Kennedy's next book."

Michael Patrick McDonald ("All Souls,""Easter Rising") would give: "Paddy Whacked" by T. J. English and would like to receive Colum McCann's "Zoli: A Novel."

T. J. English ("Paddywhacked") would give Nuala O'Faolain's "The Story of Chicago May" and would like to receive Michael Patrick McDonald's "Easter Rising."

The above authors, who were together, laughed when we posed our question, and may have succumbed to a "I'll give yours, if you'll give mine" ... mmm... exchange of favors.

Eileen Reilly (contributor, "Making the Irish American") of NYU's Glucksman Ireland House, would give Angela Bourke's "The Burning of Bridget Cleary" and would like to receive "A Guide to Irish Fiction," edited by Rolf Loeber.

John Waters whose book "Scattered Radicals: Irish Writers and Atlantic Modernity" is forthcoming, is an English professor at NYU. He would give Alice McDermott's "After This"
and would like to receive Kevin Whelan's "Atlas of the Rural Irish Landscape."

Terry Golway ("So Others Might Live: A History of New York's Bravest," "Irish Rebel," "The Irish in America") would give his own "Let Every Nation Know," a look at the speeches of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He notes the books are taking up too much room in his attic, and his wife isn't pleased. He said he would like to receive Peter Quinn's forthcoming "Looking for Jimmy."

Peter Quinn ("Banished Children of Eve") would give Peter Behrens' "The Law of Dreams" and would like to receive a boxed set of John Dos Passos' "USA."

We are ready to vouch that there was no collusion between Quinn and Golway.

Alice McDermott ("That Night." "Charming Billy") would give Edward P. Jones' "All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories" and would like to receive "Vladimir Nabokov: Novels and Memoirs 1941-1951 : The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister, Speak, Memory (Library of America)."

Paul Muldoon ("Moy Sand and Gravel") would give "The Aeneid" (translated by Robert Fagles) and would like to receive John McGahern's "Collected Stories."

I would give "Banished Children of Eve" by Peter Quinn and would like to receive a boxed set of "The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing," edited by Seamus Deane. Thanks for asking.

Patricia Jameson-Sammartano,
Culture Editor, TheWildGeese.com