Jim Kelleher’s Mick: A Celestial Drama can be read as a novel-in-verse or performed on stage. In it, a homeless, presumably hopeless Viet Vet named Mick redeems himself with the help of St. Peter and a NYPD beat cop/Iraq vet. His failed wife and son, both in Heaven, also help. So sad and true but hopeful is all this that it has captured the imaginations of early reviewers. Alicia Ostriker has this to say: “Mick: A Celestial Drama isn’t just about a miracle—it is a miracle. How Jim Kelleher has managed to make cunning, heartbreaking and heavenly comedy out of the homeless drunk Mick living in his Maytag box, his crackhead wife, his punk son and his knocked-up daughter, I’ll never know. Maybe it’s just that Kelleher writes like an angel? Or, as St. Peter says, ‘The spirit is driving—we’re all just along for the ride.’” And this from Joan Larkin: “Jim Kelleher’s dynamic verse play, Mick: A Celestial Drama, is tough and funny, artful and accessible, heartbreaking and hopeful.
Jim Kelleher teaches literature and composition at Northwestern Community College in Winsted, Connecticut, works in a group home to support three handicapped men, and is also a self-employed carpentry contractor. He earned an MFA degree from New England College in 2007. In former lives he was a teacher in the Boston public schools, caretaker for a summer camp, and Fillmore East usher. His first poetry collection, Quarry, was published by Antrim House in 2008. Jim Kelleher lives with Queenie Troy in Goshen, Connecticut. Click here to read a sample from the book. Click here to view upcoming events. Click here to read additional material relevant to the book. |
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BOOK STATISTICS ISBN 978-1-936482-05-4
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