The Hungry Road

A heartbreaking and educational read about a tragic time that changed the physical and cultural landscape of Ireland.
An event that many people in England, Canada, America and Australia can trace their ancestors back to.

The Great Famine was a disaster that hit Ireland between 1845 and about 1851, causing the deaths of about 1 million people and the flight or emigration of up to 2.5 million more over the course of about six years.
The short term cause of the Great Famine was the failure of the potato crop, especially in 1845 and 1846, as a result of the attack of the fungus known as the potato blight.
The Hungry Road is an historical fiction read based on true events with real and imagined characters that bring life to a very harrowing show more story. Short chapters and simple but effective prose works well in this novel. We get a sense of time and place and life in Ireland in the mid 1800s.
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The British government's efforts to relieve the famine were inadequate and this is well handled within the story. The author wasn’t afraid to document the harrowing and dark element of the story and yet the book never came across as depressing. There seemed to be hope and goodness in even the most dire situations. This is the author’s second fiction novel on the famine having written the children’s novel [b:Under the Hawthorn Tree|356289|Under the Hawthorn Tree (Children of the Famine #1)|Marita Conlon-McKenna|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1340340131l/356289._SY75_.jpg|346461] some years ago. She was inspired by old abandoned Irish cottages and the the real life diaries of one of the books character’s Dr Dan Donovan, a heroic figure in Skibbereen at the time of the famine.
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An enjoyable and educational read and while not one for my 5 star shelf, its a book that brings history to life and for me that’s a book worth reading. show less

his novel's setting was the Great Famine in Ireland. It tells the story of 3 families: a physician's family (middle class who survived), a poorer family who all died, and a poor family who was evicted by their landlord but given steamship tickets to America. This was a good story and well written. I especially liked the three perspectives. This book covered the time period of 1847-1854. 337 pages