Bummed that the Irish Netflix comedy series "Derry Girls" is done and dusted? You could think of Séamas O'Reilly's memoir of his childhood just outside Derry as a sequel. It has a similar sense of humor: matter-of-fact exaggeration that springs from the notion that, as O'Reilly writes, "so many horrific, depressing and awful things have happened in Northern Ireland … that whatever joy can be taken from incidents in which no one was physically harmed will be seized with both hands."
"Mammy" is often laugh-out-loud funny, particularly in the wry chapter about his mother's death. It's also about O'Reilly's love for his father, Joe, as well as Joe's love of dogs and his priest buddies, all of which is guided by O'Reilly's keen jokes.
Even when they seem to disappoint, as when he repeats the tired one about everyone passing around the same fruitcakes for decades, they take an original turn like this: "There were fruitcakes in our house that stayed for years. Some of them we dared not move for fear they'd become load-bearing."
Chris Hewitt is a writer for the Star Tribune.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?
By: Séamas O'Reilly.
Publisher: Little, Brown, 240 pages, $28.
