Michael Stephens's work is difficult to categorize; for almost three decades he has excelled in a variety of literary genres. His 1980 play, Our Father, ran off-Broadway on weekends for five years. In addition, he has published another play, four volumes of poetry, five books of nonfiction, four novels, and three collections of short fiction. He is best known for his novels and nonfiction, particularly the Coole family novels-Season at Coole (1972) and The Brooklyn Book of the Dead (1994)-and the memoir Green Dreams: Essays Under the Influence of the Irish (1994), which received the Associated Writing Programs Award for creative nonfiction in 1994. In these three works the focus is on the Irish American world and the individuals who comprise it. Writing of the dysfunctional Cooles in Brooklyn and on Long Island, Stephens reveals himself as a notable literary stylist with a true comic spirit.

The essays in Green Dreams...