{"product_id":"bill-s-boys-book-rf-mcewen-9781622884049","title":"Bill's Boys","description":"A true American demotic, Bill’s Boys is a difficult register, but here’s a poet able to tackle it.. Not since the late, great, Thomas McGrath has a poet spoken so clearly of working class life in its own true tone, as McEwen does here in grim stories from hardworking lives, unsparing, unsentimental but shot through with love and courage — not least the courage of unsparing truths from the dark intersections between Irish and American histories, so rarely spoken of, much less examined.   Without the whiskey he still had his spells  of standing-steady rolling when he’d grab  the earless side of his damp head and squeeze  it hard, then knuckle it. The first time I  remember it his eyes began to writhe  like molten stones. From corded neck  on down his convoluted body rolled  and plunged and pitched while standing still, his feet  clamped solid on the pitching floor. And while  I cowered behind the sofa bed I saw  my mother leap beyond the kitchen with  a wet dish rag she flailed against his head  and face until he stopped, and she had flung  herself about him like a throbbing shawl.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51140379902225,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51140382556433,"sku":"NIN9781622884049","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1622884043.jpg?v=1763482256","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/bill-s-boys-book-rf-mcewen-9781622884049","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}