While there are certainly numerous artists who dabble in an art form other than their main one, having a long-run history of excellence in more than one art form is a rarity.
With 30 plus years work as both a musician and a writer, Terence Winch is one of the few people to have such a history. The music on Celtic Thunder: Live in Concert 1978-2018 was released this year, and features many high points for that long-running East Coast band, one of the best American bands to be focused on Celtic music.
And just a few weeks ago, I finally had time to read Seeing-Eye Boy (published in 2020 by Four Windows Press), Winch’s novel about growing up Irish in the Bronx in the 1950s. As an author, Winch is mostly known for his many excellent books of poetry, and he is also the author of two books of short stories. Seeing-Eye Boy is his first novel though, and it shows that he is highly capable of doing more artistic things very well than people even knew.
The novel balances careful realism and Irish and Irish-America history and folk history and ultimately manages a rough-hewn and even feel-good tale about growing up that never becomes either fantasy or nostalgia. As a narrative about Irish-American life, there are very few works I can think of that might be a match for it. The novel never stops being both informative and enjoyable. It does a great job of mixing its pain and its pleasure, which as everybody already knows, is what Irish folk music too is all about.
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