tattered

A TATTERED COAT UPON A STICK

In 1920 in South Braintree, Massachusetts, a factory paymaster and his bodyguard were gunned down in cold blood. From that heinous act, an historic chain of events unfolded, and seven years later in 1927, Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti were executed for the murders.

Some twenty years after their deaths, Bill Brennan, then an adolescent, witnessed a discussion of the crime between two neighborhood leaders in his hometown, Brockton, MA, where the accused were arrested. These ordinarily mild mannered friends quickly squared off and had to be restrained from coming to blows over Sacco and Vanzetti, names Brennan had never recognized before that day.

After a lifetime ruminating on it, Bill undertook a serious review of the case. Like many before him, he concluded that Sacco and Vanzetti were not afforded anywhere near what we today take for judicial protection and that they were killed by the State as a warning to immigrants against radicalism.

The resulting novel, A TATTERED COAT UPON A STICK, provides a fresh look at the events of the early decades of the Twentieth Century that led to the grisly resolution to this crime of the century. It is the story of the plight of newcomers as seen through the eyes of a second generation Irish-American, Emmet Magawley.

Magawley, shaped by his tribe and impacted by the great events of the day, goes off to The Great War, runs rum, observes the Boston Police Strike, and, most importantly, becomes Vanzetti's jailer and confidant. Where others found a saint or the devil incarnate, Emmet discovers a flawed - and very exasperating - human being.

All of the forces of ethnic solidarity are loosed on Emmet as he moves from keeper to supporter of the anarchist. Magawley resolves to stand with Bart but, in the end, is too daunted to effect the executions. He spends the rest of his life coming to grips with his guilt and shortcomings, and he resolves to redress the great wrong.

Like the Civil War, the Sacco and Vanzetti case divided families and neighborhoods. Brennan's novel explores this theme rather than the actual guilt or innocence of the convicted pair.

As their grandparents wrestled with the culpability of Sacco and Vanzetti, today's generations must ponder this American tragedy. Since all of the actors are long dead, an objective review of the quality of justice for Sacco and Vanzetti may at last be possible.

Newspapers around the globe weighed in on the case and over the seven years of the agony of Sacco and Vanzetti shifted to almost universal support for the condemned pair. The Associated Press named the Sacco and Vanzetti case the most important news story of the Twentieth Century in Massachusetts.

Back to Manchester Reads