Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Write Your Own Irish Memoir!

Few cultures have as rich of a literary tradition as the Irish. And few literary traditions are as steeped in abject sadness, soul-crushing squalor and pub-related fatalities as that of the Irish autobiography. Yet each year we continue to be enthralled by books from authors that by all accounts should not have lived past birth. So in honor of these fine men and women I present the following template to help you pen your own award-winning Irish memoir, Mad Libs style. For example:

“We boiled the (noun) for dinner and then got (adjective)-faced on Harps.”

Ready? Then get out a paper and pen let's begin!

I Can't Find Me Legs: A Tale of Growing Up Poor, Catholic and Eventually Blind in Ireland
By (Your name here)
It was day three of the Blessed Feast of the Prolonged Consumption and Father O'Hurley had just finished (gerund) me in the abbey. I put on the clothes my dear, defeated mother had fashioned me from discarded (vegetable) and quickly ran past the abandoned (town's sole economic lifeline)—only to learn that my (dearest childhood possession) had been sold to help pay for the removal of my wee brother's (body part of which there is only one).

These were tough times for the Mc (complete surname) clan. A blight had destroyed all the (chemical element for water), and we had just burned the last of the (choose a gender) in the house to stay warm. Still, we had faith in our (proper noun) that He would be merciful and soon (verb) the lot of us in our sleep.

Soon after I arrived home my father stumbled in through the (entrance other than door), reeking of whiskey and (woman's name other than "Mom"). "Damn the cursed English!" he yelled at our pet (inanimate object) before his (gimp extremity) gave out and he crashed face first into the (colorful Gaelic phrase for "open cutlery drawer").

With my father now dead, it was up to my mother to raise me and my (double-digit number) siblings, which she did by getting a job in (imagine the worst job possible for a woman, then imagine it occurring inside an underground factory). Unfortunately, a few hours later while walking back from the prostitute cannery she was struck from behind, both sides and above from (oh hell, you decide). She eventually died from (medical term for “the sniffles”).

Twenty years later I moved to America.



Congratulations, you’re now all authors!

10 comments:

Andy Jukes said...

Oh, you scamp!

yellojkt said...

“We boiled the (noun) for dinner and then got (adjective)-faced on Harps.”

That line alone makes sure I never run out of diary entries.

ParallaxG said...

Whale oil beef hooked.

Unknown said...

this almost makes me want to read more James Joyce.

but not quite.

Jennifer said...

I will now address you as "Francesco O'Marculiano."

Steve said...

Bijou nitpickette: we wouldn't say "on Harps", but "on Harp".

Slightly larger nitpick: have you tried getting drunk on Harp lager? it's weak and watery: cheap, it may be, at the per glass level, but you'd be better off having fewer jars of a decent stout....

Ray said...

Booker Prize is for fiction...

Francesco Marciuliano said...

Yeah, I was afraid that a lot of people would not get the joke about Booker Prize--that most memoirs are in many way fictitious--so I just changed it to the simpler "award-winning."

Dale Kathryn said...

... and that this all happened on the darkest, dampest, dankest, dullest, blackest, stormiest, windiest, and rainiest night ever seen in Eire goes without saying ...

Biblefanfiction said...

Jaysus, ye garlic- chompin' , papal-pimpin',koont ye! If Ay ever git me hands on ye' I'll punt your bullocks up tru yer nose so hard, you'll sneeze your first born.