Easter Rising

A coming-of-age story about surviving trauma and finding purpose through Boston’s punk rock scene of the 1970s to New York City and beyond, from the bestselling author of All Souls

In All Souls, Michael Patrick MacDonald chronicled a heartbreaking saga of familial loss amid Irish South Boston’s culture of silence. In Easter Rising, he tells the story of how he managed to survive it.

Finding refuge in the city’s burgeoning underground music scene, MacDonald journeys first to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, then to cities across Europe in a search for both his roots and his future. What comes of his travels is a profound story of rebellion, reinvention, and reconciliation.


As the quiet outlier in a big Irish Catholic family, MacDonald set himself apart from both his siblings and his peers, eschewing drugs and alcohol in favor of a thrilling new genre of music: punk rock.

Amid the underground music scene of Boston in the 1970s, he encounters pivotal figures including Johnny Rotten and the Clash, and rides the wave to New York City. MacDonald finds not only belonging, but a reinvigorated sense of purpose among activist-minded musicians who taught him to question the status quo—planting the seeds for his work as an anti-violence organizer.

MacDonald travels to Europe, wandering aimlessly, and eventually lands in Ireland to visit his maternal grandfather—a journey back to his roots that allows him to finally return home.