Tailee the Talking Salmon is the exciting story of a salmon's adventures around the southern and western coasts of Ireland. A Middle Reader fantasy novel, Tailee grows a youngster's interest in international themes such as nature's wonders, pollution and shows how people from very different worlds can work in unison. While the specific tale is set in Ireland and inspired by a story in Fairy Legends (1822), this story is personality driven and not ethnocentric. It is a tale of courage, friendship and discovery, as a dapper Tailee wins the cooperation of Red, an old sailor and fisherman while escaping the clutches of angry villagers, works with Lefty, a skeletal sailor who had drowned at sea, plus merboys and enchanting mermaids on their rocky shores. Their mission is to end the reign of Cu Mara, an evil merman who enslaved skeletal sailors to do work so horrible for old salts it cannot be mentioned here. In the process Tailee and Lefty face the underwater world of kelp, pollution and predators, the mermen's cave under the Cliffs of Moher, and visit the mermaid's in their grotto beneath the oceans. The merman's red scullcap comes in handy when Tailee and Lefty must grow a body to go ashore, and the mermaid's silvery cap allows them to sing above the waters on rocky island shores, and helps when they must entice Cu Mara onto Inis Oirr where he discovers his miserable fate.
About the Author: I grew up in the ancient city of Kilkenny, Ireland, and like the Kilkenny cats as we are called, I have had many lives. I became a Catholic priest, worked for ten years in Brazilian shantytowns during the period of military dictatorship, and discovered the importance of human rights. See my YA novel, "Shantytown". I moved to New York, and taught sociological theory and the sociology of religion in the City University of New York. I edited and introduced a book of theoretical essays by my deceased friend, Emil Oestereicher, "Thinking, Feeling and Doing", wrote articles on religious developments in South America's Catholic Church, and on the resurgence of evangelical religion in the US. I also promoted human rights with a member of Jimmy Carter's State Department, and organized the New York Forum on Brazil 1978/79. I translated Leonardo Boff's "Jesus Christ Liberator" from Portuguese into English. In January 1992, I went on a UN Peacekeeping Mission to promote human rights in Cambodia, then South Africa, and on to Angola where I retired in 2003 after the civil war ended. See my fictional human rights thriller, "Three Stars Over Luanda". In this period I also published humorous short stories for children and wrote human rights plays for TV, radio, which were staged in the National Theater. In Florida I have written and directed two plays. So the cat has had yet another life in retirement. While I always had the ability to see the funny and ironic side of things, I dedicated my life to rather serious stuff, successful or not, I have to agree with the aphorism: hard work never killed anyone, even if it did not make much money for me. I hope readers enjoy my work even if it has a serious side to it. I am happily married, and have two wonderful children. Yet another life!