Thomas J. Rice, author of "Rites of Passage: Five Irish Stories"

Conducted in 2017 by Linda Thompson, host of “The Authors Show” since 2005; the show is a podcast made available on multiple online channels across the US, each featuring one individual author for a full 24 hours, Monday through Thursday. For more details, google “The Authors Show.”

Told with sympathy and humor, the five Irish stories in Thomas Rices' Rites of Passage are of homeland lost and recovered, of fierce loyalties, of dashed and regained hopes, of betrayals and humiliations, of boys making their perilous journeys to manhood, of single mothers eking an existence out of stony soil, of the foibles and follies of small town communities, of grown men escaping the long shadow of childhood trauma.

Although the themes of the book often have to do with irretrievable wrongdoing, the redemptive undercarriage is a celebration of characters' valiant struggles toward fairness and human dignity.