introduction

Having lived on military bases as the son of an Air Force officer, I did not know what it was to regard a city as home. But then, in my twenties, I moved to Boston. I fell in love with the place, but also understood that I was an outsider to it. Not a tourist, perhaps, but never to be a native.

Still, on my days off for those first few years, I wandered the city and inhaled its stories. Because of my own heritage as the descendant of immigrants from Counties Tipperary and Clare, the Boston Irish saga in particular entranced me, how a beleaguered people washed ashore from a famine-cursed island and a losing struggle with British overlords. That the Boston Irish faced a new version of the old conflict with cousins of those same overlords—the Boston Brahmin—gave the city’s story an irresistible edge. But by my time the blade of that edge had been dulled by the triumphs of newcomer politics, and of time.

John F. Kennedy epitomized that triumph, and as one of his young devotees, I reveled in Boston’s identification with that most glamorous figure and the dynasty he’d established. But President Kennedy’s having been cut down in his prime was the permanent reminder that the Boston Irish story comes, also, laced with tragedy.

When I first embraced a writerly ambition, I knew at once that my adopted city, with all its conflicts, crimes, defeats, and victories, would be my great subject—even if all I could hope to do was chronicle the saga from outside. Mortal Friends is the form that ambition took—my joyous love song to Boston, even if—yes, being Irish—its refrain is melancholy.

The hero of this novel, Colman Brady—a Tipperary farmer turned Boston pol turned underworld entrepreneur—came to me as the igniting spark of my writing life. By conjuring his story, even with its brutal contradictions, I found a way to invent a history for myself, as if I, too, arriving in Boston and doing my best, had been received, welcomed, and entrusted with its keys. In the writing of this book, putting into words my unleashed love for the place and all its people, I seem to have tapped somehow into some of its unspoken truths—including dark ones.

Colman Brady, because readers took to him, then gave me my life as a writer. Mortal Friends was the mark of my homecoming and the seal of my vocation. So why should I not rejoice, almost half a century later, to bring this novel back, and hand it over once more to large-hearted readers?

I gratefully acknowledge William D. Phillips, who, as a young editor at the distinguished Boston Publisher Little Brown and Company, was the first to find an early draft of this novel worthy. His brilliant and patient work as its editor enabled me to fulfill my purpose as its author. And then Bill brought the book into the world with such positive flare that others caught it, too. The initial publication of Mortal Friends gave me a lot, but nothing as precious as my lifelong friendship with Bill Phillips. Thank you, dear man.

And now, this new edition has been carefully brought into the world by Blackstone Publishing, to whom I offer thanks. I am proud to be on the Blackstone list. And special thanks are due to my diligent and magnanimous manager, Daniel Sladek. I am deeply in his debt. Thank you, Daniel.

When I was writing Mortal Friends in 1977, I met and fell in love with the woman I was lucky enough to marry—the writer Alexandra Marshall. When the book first appeared, its dedication read simply “For Lexa.” With enduring love and boundless thanks for the long life we have created together, I repeat that simple dedication here.

Boston, 2022