Born to Play, 2009 (co-author)

Co-author on 2008 American League MVP Dustin Pedroia's book on his rise to prominence as a member of the Boston Red Sox. Published in July 2009 by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

 

Warp & Weft, 2004

Winner, 2005 PEN/Winship Award

From Publisher's Weekly:

"Three men slog through days in a New England textile mill and while away the nights in a working-class town in Delaney's quietly lyrical first novel (after 1999's The Drowning and Other Stories). Just 16, Dominic drops out of school to work at Chace Finishing, where Machado, who immigrated from the Azores islands in his middle age, and Carey, a lifer, also toil. It's 1978, and the mill isn't what it used to be; even in boom times the work was long and hard. In short chapters from alternating points of view, Delaney reveals Dominic's desire to prove himself to his bitter, wheelchair-bound father; Machado's resistance to his wife's wish to return to their former home; and Carey's hopes of becoming foreman and his obsession with the mill's softball team. The older workers' life frustrations are deflected onto rookies like Dominic and Parry, a local rich man's son; even as the boys adjust to the work (or, as in Parry's case, eventually quit), life itself pushes them, and the rest of the book's characters, to their limits. Delaney portrays the landscape and the milieu with impressionistic grace, but when it comes to plot, too often primitive tests of manhood (fighting, lifting 55-gallon drums of dye and scoring at ball games) substitute for more profound challenges. Yet Delaney's evocation of the quotidian is affecting, and his empathy is evident on every page of this somber and graceful book."

 

 

 

 

 

The Drowning & Other Stories, 1999

From Publisher's Weekly:

"The credible, plainspeaking characters in Delaney's sure-footed first collection of nine stories--priests, drunks, conspiracy theorists, criminals--have taken wrong turns in the past that lend their present lives a sad irony. In "Travels with Mr. Slush," an ex-felon who drives a truck that sells crushed, flavored ice through urban neighborhoods suddenly finds himself the victim of crime when youths steal his car battery on the hottest day of the summer, melting his entire load. Yet the tale closes with a surprising, cautious optimism. In "O Beauty! O Truth!" a boy who ridicules his strict teachers foreshadows his shooting death years later by police officers as he leaves a crime scene. Characters usually find crucial life decisions made for them by forces beyond their control. The 17-year-old narrator of "A Visit To My Uncle" travels to New York to ask his rich, estranged relative for money for medicl school; he is nonplussed when his uncle (a lwayer) offers to pay his way, but only under maipulative conditions. The standout title story tells of a tormented former priest who suddenly emigrates in middle age from Ireland to America. His new life includes a new vocation as a hod carrier and a new name, an act born of panicked necessity after he disposes of the dead body of a possible traitor, a constable in the RIC, in a lake. In the less dramatic pieces, Delaney wisely lets a poignant situation tell its own story. In "The Anchor and Me," a mild-tempered husband is unable to say whether he feels jealous or proud of his anchorwoman spouse's driven, successful life and career; the antihero of "Notes Toward My Absolution" robs convenience stores with an unloaded gun. Delaney's measured pace imparts a grace to his tales, which at their best are reminiscent of Cheever or Updike's grittiest efforts. Few words are wasted in this quietly triumphant collection."