Author Michael McDonald talks about his life during his appearance at Lynn Classical High School Tuesday at part of the One Book program. In it, all the students in the school read the same book and later the author drops by the school for a lecture. Item Photo by Owen O’Rourke
By Gayla Cawley
LYNN — A summer reading assignment came to life for Lynn Classical High School students on Tuesday.
Students were assigned to read “All Souls: A Family Story from Southie,” over the summer. They were visited by the book’s author, Michael Patrick MacDonald, on Tuesday. He gave a lecture based on his 1999 memoir, urging students to find their voice.
MacDonald, 50, spoke about his life growing up in South Boston, which was mired in violence, drug overdoses, suicide and painkilling addiction. He grew up in a mostly Irish Catholic neighborhood, which had a code of silence when it came to acknowledging the problems, imposed by gangsters.
The author was one of 11 children, but four of his brothers died. One died as a baby of pneumonia a year before MacDonald was born. Another brother, Dave, jumped off a bridge. Two of his brothers, Frankie, 24, and Kevin, 22, died eight months apart.
Frankie got involved in a bank heist, MacDonald said, and was found in the first getaway car, shot in the crossfire, covered in trash bags and pushed under the seat.
Kevin got involved in a jewelry store heist and went to prison. Detectives had video footage of him trying to prevent his partner from shooting the jeweler and would only show it in court if he flipped. He was found hanging outside his prison cell. Word had gone around that he was going to snitch for a lesser sentence. MacDonald said it’s unclear if he did it himself or if someone else did it to keep him from talking.
MacDonald finally opened up to a therapist about his family’s loss, three months after Kevin died, after being referred by a doctor. He had been to numerous doctors and emergency rooms, complaining of different non-existent ailments, before being referred.
After telling his story, he said his therapist was buckled over in her chair with tears streaming down her face, which left a lasting impression on him. Before her reaction, he thought what happened to him and others like him in his neighborhood at the time was typical.
“Even though so many Southie families had buried their kids in recent years, I thought for the first time, most people don’t live like this,” he said. “I saw that all the deaths in my family and the neighborhood were not normal.”
MacDonald said the therapy set him on a journey. He was pushed further by watching the news and saw that the same issues — oppression, violence, guns, drugs and poverty — were happening in nearby Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, but people there were able to speak about it, rather than being pushed down by a code of silence that he experienced. He traveled there, hooking up with the mothers of children who had died a violent death, and started his community organizing efforts.
He found his voice in those communities and brought those mothers back to his neighborhood, where they organized a vigil on All Souls Day, a day to remember the dead on the Catholic calendar. MacDonald said they decided to remember those who had died too young from circumstances such as murders, suicides and overdoses. He figured that about 10 people would show up, but found the church to be packed.
The mothers he met had used their pain and turned it into power. They had seen the violent death of a child and the lack of justice afterwards, but rather than falling into the trap of painkilling through alcohol and drugs or other self-destructive behavior, were trying to help others, MacDonald said.
“You’re saving your own life, as well as trying to help other people,” he said.
Students, such as Josephine Capellan and Mamadou Bah, both 17, said before the lecture that they were looking for more information about the author’s life.
Gabriela Villanueva, 17, a senior, said his story was very relatable because of Lynn’s high crime rate.
“Maybe not a lot of people see it,” she said.
Sharon Ramos, 15, a sophomore, said he was interested in his opinion about what’s going on in the world today, such as racism.
“It honestly amazed me how someone could survive something so hard,” she said.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.