Ma… series by Martha Long (#1-7)
Requirements: ePUB Reader, 5.1 MB
Overview: Martha Long was born in Dublin in the early 1950s and still lives there today. She calls herself a ‘middle-aged matron’ and has successfully reared three children. The Bookseller described her as a ‘truly gifted storyteller’ & Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, compared her to Charles Dickens. Her seventh and final book in the bestselling Ma series will be published by Mainstream Publishing in the UK, Australia and New Zealand in September 2013. Her first book was published in North America by Seven Stories Press in November 2012.
Genre: Nonfiction | Autobiography
Book 1: Ma, He Sold Me for a Few Cigarettes
‘Then I heard the most beautiful music, an suddenly I was outa me body an flyin. An I wanted te cry inside meself. I wasn’t dead any more, I was lifted away, far away. I can do anythin. I can be somebody, I can be beautiful, I can be gentle, I can be rich, I can smell good. The world is waitin fer me. I can be what I want. Then it ended. An I was back in the room. I opened me eyes slowly an took in everythin aroun me. One day I’ll be able te stop this. Nobody will keep me down. I’ll work hard, an I’ll be at the top, cos I don’t want anyone lookin down on me.’
Born a bastard to a teenage mother in the slums of 1950s Dublin, Martha has to be a fighter from the very start.
As her mother moves from man to man, and more children follow, they live hand-to-mouth in squalid, freezing tenements, clothed in rags and forced to beg for food. But just when it seems things can’t get any worse, her mother meets Jackser.
Despite her trials, Martha is a child with an irrepressible spirit and a wit beyond her years. She tells the story of her early life without an ounce of self-pity and manages to recreate a lost era in which the shadow of the Catholic Church loomed large and if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat.
Martha never stops believing she is worth more than the hand she has been dealt, and her remarkable voice will remain with you long after you’ve finished the last line.
Book 2: Ma, I’m Gettin Meself a New Mammy
Aged thirteen, Martha is rescued by the courts from the clutches of her evil stepfather, Jackster, and her feckless mother, Sally. After numerous arrests for shoplifting, a judge rules that she is to be sent to a convent school with the instruction that she is to get an education.
Her initial relief at escaping the abuse and neglect she suffered at home is, however, short-lived, as she soon realises there are many forms of cruelty in this life. As she says, "You can have a full belly, but your heart can be very empty." Ostracised by the other children for being a ‘street kid’ and put to back-breaking work by the nuns, she endures a lonely existence, her only joy coming from the books she devours and her mischievous sense of humour.
Desperate for love and a little place she feels she belongs, Martha retains her compassion for others despite all that she has suffered and still continues to hope for a brighter future when she will be free to make her own way in life.
Book 3: Ma, It’s a Cold Aul Night an I’m Lookin for a Bed
The next installment of the Ma books—all bestsellers in Ireland and the UK—brings readers on the journey of Martha’s first months of freedom in Dublin after leaving the convent where she spent her early adolescence.
In the latest chapter of Martha Long’s autobiographical series, Martha is for the first time on her own: discharged from the convent, she’s finally 16, the age she’d long dreamed of as the doorway to her freedom from the whims of cruel adults. "Life is a bowl of cherries!" she reasons as she sets out to blend in with the middle classes and find love, acceptance, and respect therein. But this is also Dublin in the 1960s, where class aspirations ain’t so easy for the likes of Martha.
As one job and bedsit is found (and lost), another soon comes along with its own foibles and dangers . . . but with her signature spirit and true grit, Martha makes the best of every situation and manages to offer compassion even to the most downtrodden of characters who cross her path. Chance meetings with old friends from the convent and a fortuitous (yet brief) reunion with two of her brothers remind Martha of all she has experienced (and survived) and serves as the impetus for her to keep going . . . even when homelessness is all but certain.
As with her previous books, Ma, It’s a Cold Aul Night an I’m Lookin for a Bed has us cheering for Martha. This time she doesn’t have any nuns or abusive stepfathers preventing her from making progress . . . but life does still get in the way, and that bowl of cherries sometimes proves to be a bit more sour than Martha would hope.
Book 4: Ma, Now I’m Goin Up in the World
In the latest instalment of Martha Long’s autobiography, Ma, Now I’m Goin Up in the World, her story continues through her teenage years.
At 16, Martha collapses on the streets, suffering from starvation, exposure and absolute exhaustion. She has reached rock bottom and something must give. Otherwise, she may come to an untimely end. After Martha is taken to hospital, Lady Luck smiles kindly on her and she is given the opportunity to get off the streets for ever.
Before long, Martha is on the way to leading the normal life she has so long dreamt of. She makes friends, begins to put the misery of her past behind her and even experiences her first taste of love.
For her, love is a powerful feeling. She has never experienced real affection before and is now plunged into the complex world of love between a man and a woman. This conflict between childhood and adulthood, with the different emotional needs of both, causes a war of confusion to rage within Martha.
She is locked in an intense emotion that consumes her, for this is a forbidden love that can never be requited. After all, Ralph Fitzgerald is a priest, and he will never break his vow of chastity. This love brings heartbreaking consequences and changes the direction of Martha’s life for ever . . .
Book 5: Ma, I’ve Got Meself Locked Up in the Mad House
Martha is now in her thirties. Her daughter has left home and she is lonely and vulnerable. The hard knocks have taken their toll on her health, and as she looks into the years still lying ahead of her, she shakes her head, feeling she hasn’t the heart or the strength to go on.
As she teeters on the brink of a nervous breakdown, a phone call summons ghosts from the past. She discovers that one of the family is dead and the others need her help. Martha returns and when she comes face to face with the evil, psychotic Jackser, she can no longer suppress the nightmares of her childhood.
A suicide attempt sees her admitted to the ‘mad house’, where a hunger strike takes her even nearer to death. But finally she sees a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. Could love in an unexpected form pull her back from the brink?
Book 6: Ma, I’ve Reached for the Moon an I’m Hittin the Stars
After a failed suicide attempt and recovery in the mad house, Martha is heading for France to be reunited with the one true love of her life. Father Ralph Fitzgerald rescued her from the streets when she was sixteen and was the first person to show Martha true love and affection. But their relationship threatened his vocation and he eventually fled to Africa to take up missionary work.
Martha never got over losing him and now, after nearly twenty years, he has made contact again. She sets off on a mission to find him and uncover his motives for getting in touch. Does he still love her? Has he left the priesthood? Is he now free to marry her? She needs to know what the future is going to hold.
Book 7: Ma, Jackser’s Dyin Alone
On hearing that Jackser, her childhood abuser, is seriously ill, Martha is elated, thinking that finally she will be able to watch him suffer. But in the hospital she sees a frightened, lonely old man and realises with a shock that he seems to regret his earlier actions.
During her vigil, she is joined by Charlie, her beloved little brother, then the ma and some of her other siblings. All of them have suffered greatly and it is clear that no one connected to Jackser has escaped unscathed.
But as she sits with him during his dying days, other memories of Jackser come back to Martha – fleeting moments of concern and kindness, and a sense of closeness as he recalled his own tormented past in one of Ireland’s industrial schools. It is a vicious cycle of cruelty and loss that has played out, from which only her own tenacity and wit has provided an escape.
Poignant, ribald, poetic and defiant, with its resolution of many unanswered questions about her life this is Martha at her best.
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