Crossing Highbridge: A Memoir of Irish America

Abstract

An evocotive tale of coming to womanhood in disorienting 1960s-a girl in world of nuns and Holy Ghost-but on a deeper level, this is a story of a woman who has suffered unimaglnable loss and attempts to make sense of that loss by re-imagining her past and her own Irish-American heritage. The first in her family born in United States, Maureen grew up Bronx daughter of two unforgettable immigrants: her storytelling, former revolutionary father, and her fierce, IRA-supporting mother. Crossing Higbbridge is framed by accidental death of Waters's son and her struggle to make sense of this loss by re-imagining her past and her heritage. Her life in postwar New York City was colored by Catholicism and strong cultural links to the other side - by Irish step dancing, melodies of Thomas Moore, and rituals, inflections, and harrowing memories impressed on her. Sex was a mystery. Schoolgirls wore below-the-knee blue serge uniforms with starched white collars and cuffs. Brutal treatment at hands of hands of nuns who ran her college drove Waters to transfer to a secular school. Waters rebelled against an upbringing that seemed to wall her off from twentieth century. She married outside church, divorced, and became a scholar and professor at City University of New York. Waters follows in tradition of her father with this vividly humorous and moving true tale.