Shamrock and Lotus     Publisher: All Things That Matter Press     Date of Publication: 2010 SYNOPSIS A riveting novel about family and forgiveness, and the ways history continues to affect us in the present until we turn and face it. Claire, an American wife and mother, lives in Dublin with her husband, Michael and their daughter Miriam. Claire has devoted her life to being a wife and mother, but now she is waking up to the fact that she is 40 and doesn't really know who she is. Brigid, an Irish woman living in New Mexico, works as a midwife for people living on Native American reservations. One day, she, too, is awakened-- by her mother in Dublin, who is calling to say that Brigid's father, who has been in prison as a suspected IRA member, is being released. Both women soon find themselves in an Indian restaurant in Dublin owned by Padmaj, a man from India who has emigrated to Ireland during the economic boom times of the Celtic Tiger. Like Claire and Brigid, Padmaj has a memories of a painful past he would rather leave behind. Together, the characters learn how national history, colonization, poverty, famine, development, and immigration are at work in people's lives. Together they find ways, as we all can, to face these histories through our intimate connections with our families and communities and restorative relationships with our planet. back