Call of the Lark by Maura Mulligan is a chronicle of life in rural Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s, a testament to the challenges of emigration to the United States, and a portrait of one woman's strength and determination to forge a fulfilling life. The story begins in a New York novitiate where Maura is training to be a nun. Through the window of her memory, she invites the reader to share her childhood on a rain-swept farm in County Mayo, where women smoke clay pipes, the donkey brings turf from the bog, and children dibble the spuds and dodge a cane-wielding schoolmaster. In the bustling...