Author Event: Ken Egan, Jr.

Join us for an evening with author Ken Egan Jr., including a talk & book signing for his new book coming out in November. Ken Egan Jr., Irish Born, American Made: The Life and Myth of Captain John Egan “A fascinating, deeply researched saga of the loss and promise of immigration. In the particulars of his Irish immigrant ancestors—in their travails, trials, and triumphs—Egan Jr. shreds old clichés and sheds new light on America’s continuing ambivalence toward the newly arrived. A timely account.”—Peter Quinn, author of Banished Children of Eve: A Novel of Civil War New York Born to poverty in the Irish county of Tipperary, John Egan participated in some of the most dramatic events of the nineteenth century, including mass migration to the United States during a catastrophic famine, the “opening” of Japan via gunboat diplomacy, Sherman’s March to the Sea, and homesteading in the Upper Midwest. In Irish Born, American Made, his great-grandson examines the processes by which a scorned British subject became a proud American citizen. Although Egan’s life was filled with epic drama, the author does not shy away from unsavory truths, such as his ancestor’s doubts about the virtues of abolition or his enthusiastic participation in settling land appropriated from Indigenous peoples. Equally, Egan recognizes the real hardships his ancestor faced in assimilating to American society, from the prejudices of the ascendant Know-Nothing movement to the condescending caricatures of Irish soldiers by his Union compatriots during and after the Civil War. The result is both a moving reminder of the hardships of immigration and a timely reckoning with the imperfections of our forebears. Ken Egan Jr. is the former executive director of Humanities Montana, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He previously taught American literature at colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. The author or editor of five books, he lives in Missoula,…