NEW BOOK! Spinner Publications’ “Blue Collars,” novel by Catherine McLaughlin

Spinner Publications proudly presents Blue Collars, a debut novel written by New Bedford native Catherine McLaughlin and the publishing house’s first book of fiction. Blue Collars is slated for release Spring 2018.

A compelling story about growing up during the late 1950s and 1960s in a New Bedford working-class family, Blue Collars details the triumphs and tragedies of the close-knit Kilroy family. Told through the eyes of young Fiona “Finn” Kilroy, her story unfolds in the city’s South End, a neighborhood where Portuguese, Irish, French, and Cape Verdean immigrant families lived side-by-side in mostly three-decker tenement houses typical of many New England cities. Finn’s father worked long hours as a loomfixer at the Berkshire Hathaway textile mill along the city’s waterfront and her mother struggled to keep the children healthy, well fed and well dressed.

Surrounded by the love of a caring, extended family, Finn’s life seems from the outside to be carefree and idyllic. But a terrible secret haunts her childhood. This is the story of a young girl’s endurance in the face of betrayal and her brave efforts to overcome the shocks that rock her world. Finn’s efforts to present a normal face breaks the
reader’s heart. Her story infuriates – even as her determination to stay strong and survive will inspire every reader.

From Finn’s tumultuous childhood to her coming of age, we deeply experience her family’s life of love, abuse, and heartache amidst a backdrop of historical events such as textile strikes and economic and political upheaval that shaped America and this industrial city.

Catherine McLaughlin grew up in New Bedford and now lives nearby in Padanaram. She received her undergraduate degree from UMass Dartmouth, formerly Southeastern Massachusetts University, and her graduate degrees from the University College Dublin and Bowling Green State University. A published poet and an accomplished artist, McLaughlin has taught English and writing for 40 years and is a professor emerita of Framingham State University.

Buzz for Blue Collars:

Here are a some advance reviews ….

“Catherine McLaughlin’s novel, Blue Collars, is a powerful work of fiction. From the first page to the last, the story is both real and relatable. Finn Kilroy and her supporting cast of characters jump right off the page, making Blue Collars a page-turner that kept me up late into the night. Highly recommended!”
—Steven Manchester, #1 bestselling author, The Rockin’ Chair and Twelve Months

“McLaughlin’s work never fails to leave the reader enthralled. Blue Collars is no exception. In this book, we journey the streets, backyards, and factories of New Bedford in the late 1950s throughout the fevered sixties as seen by McLaughlin’s young heroine, Finn. We watch hopefully as Finn overcomes one issue, dilemma after another — problems too heavy for her slender shoulders to bear, and we, the rapt reader, look for solutions alongside her.”
— Patricia Gomes, Poet Laureate, City of New Bedford, Massachusetts

“In Blue Collars, Catherine McLaughlin captures the full array of emotion from innocent joy and love to despair. On one page the main character Finn is playing blissfully at the beach with her father and siblings, on another she recalls the death of her best friend’s brother.
But mostly this is a story about a secret that gnaws at Finn throughout her childhood and adolescence – one that she believes would tear apart her tight-knit family. Like the dike protecting the harbor and factories of that New England city, Finn builds a wall of silence to protect her family. But the specter of guilt and shame leaves its imprint on the young girl.”
— Elizabeth Pimentel, freelance journalist