'The Irish Girl' reveals a woman ahead of her time

There is a Chinese saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. For the 13 year old Mary Agnes Coyne, her three-thousand-plus mile journey to America from County Galway, on Ireland's western central coast, starts with the hardest, most reluctant step of all: being kicked out of her parents' house, and for the worst of all reasons: falsely accused of being a whore by her mother in the aftermath of her half-brother Fiach's attempt to rape her in her bed.

If there is a saying that luck is where preparation and opportunity meet, Ashley Sweeney's great grandmother, fictionalized as Mary A. in Sweeney's new – and fourth – novel, "The Irish Girl," was born prepared. She certainly made her own luck.

Sweeney imagines, tracks down and researches the dates, places, travels and travails the real Mary Agnes undertook from 1886 to 1892, from Ireland to Liverpool, England; across the Atlantic on the ship Endeavour, with dozens dying; entering the United States at New York's Castle Garden – pre Ellis Island, though she is greeted by the barefoot Statue of Liberty; into the tenements of New York City; then Chicago; Colorado Springs and back to Chicago.

Mary A.'s journey is through life, as well as a physical one. In this feminist novel we travel with a protagonist who has determination, grit, hope and – amazingly – love. This in spite of the harshness and cruelty of, mostly, men, in the burgeoning and industrializing world.

Mary A. is raped twice, groped, forced to touch men's crotches and to undress as one watches. Through it all, she is bolstered by her Catholic faith and an indomitable spirit.

She has – and offers – the same love her grandparents have, who took her in, held her close and paid for her passage to Chicago. Like them, she insists on a larger view of the world.

"They say all of Ireland is cursed, but don't ya believe it," her grandfather Fetus tells her. "We're made of something different and don't let anyone tell ya otherwise."

Her grandparents fostered her dream of attending university in Chicago, hiring a tutor who is a classmate of William Butler Yeats and reads from a Yeat's poem, "For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

Mary A. has been exposed to weeping since birth. Her father is an alcoholic, her mother, beaten, beats her – and worst – has turned her heart against her daughter. The only abundance in Mary A.'s life is of want. She is often cold, hungry, wet and deprived of affection.

Yet in a New York tenement, she find and has affection for a mother with 13 children who took her in while she earns money to get to Chicago.

In Chicago, against all odds, she meets Tom and falls in love and marries this wonderful man, though she had vowed to never marry.

But real life is heartbreak. Colorado's high desert air cannot save Tom and his tuberculosis kills him. Fiction imagines the possibilities of a hopeful spirit. The real Mary Agnes went to work on a cattle trail chuckwagon. Sweeney, a lover of the Southwest, has her Mary A. get recruited to cook on a ranch by a handsome Dutch cowboy. Mary A. learns to ride, cook for a crew and view the expanse of the Rockies.

Sweeney has an eye for and appreciation of nature, bringing the reader to specific places: Mary A. "sits under a clutch of aspens, her back against the bark and skirt pulled up to her knees, tracing the sun as it filters through branches and fluttering leaves. She's aware of all her senses, the warm breeze, the trill of birdcall – is that a finch? – and the strong earthy smell of the ground beneath her."

She is also open to the larger world. When a hummingbird buzzed about, Mary A. reaches, not to touch the bird but something out of reach. "'What does this bird teach us,' she thinks. It doesn't take but a second for an answer. 'Even though the journey is long, never give up. Never.' She smiles. 'It might as well be tattooed on my heart by now. Never give up.'"

Mary Agnes is 18. She will return to Chicago, be raped, become pregnant, miscarry and be nursed to health by an Italian immigrant landlady. Mary A. in turn, will help a former rich employer's turned-out daughter, now bedraggled, cold, filthy and confused. She brings her to her tiny apartment and sponge baths her. Reaching Doria's feet, "she holds her breath. It's no less than what Jesus would do."

From beginning to end, Mary Agnes is actively engaged in the world, this teenager who refuses to be beaten down.

Unexpectedly rewarded by Doria's mother, she decides to find her cowboy, now in Sante Fe. About to leave, she thinks, "None of this would have unfolded the way it did if I didn't walk every step of this journey."

She is 19.

The real Mary Agnes lived a long life into the 1930s in Chicago, raising Sweeney's grandmother and father.

Since 2016 Sweeney has published "Eliza Waite," "Answer Creek" and "Hardland," all award-winning novels.

Sweeney has a Dec. 11, 2-4 p.m. book signing at Seaport Books in La Conner's Gilkey Square.