Greenburgh Public Library Blog

Here are a few series of fictional novels that will give you hours of enjoyable reading about European immigrants:

Diana Gabaldon wrote the Outlander series beginning in 1991. The characters bring their Scottish culture to North Carolina and also take part in the American Revolution. Gabaldon is one of my favorite authors and I’ve read all her books, not just watched the amazing Starz series “Outlander” starring Catriona Balfe and Sam Heughan as time traveling soul mates in 18th Century Scotland. 

Irish immigrant Bridie Doyle goes to New York as a maid, and returns to Ireland as a rich woman (married to a fake Count!)—embodying the American Dream--in The Deverill Chronicles trilogy by Santa Montefiore. The audiobook versions are a bit melodramatic but the accents are fabulous and the characters are well-developed. Irish immigrants like myself will recognize their relatives and find familiar family legends in these books. The now classic Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt tells another story of the Irish in America, as does the 1998 movie "Far and Away" with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. 

Modern Girls (2016), a debut novel by Jennifer S. Brown, tells the story of Dottie Krasinsky, a dutiful daughter living with her Yiddish-speaking parents on New York City's Lower East Side in 1935. Also about Jewish immigrants is the novel Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz, who recounts the struggles of four Polish Jews in the U.S. after WWII. The Jewish Book Council lists other recommended books about "American Immigrant Tales". 

Based on a true story, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, by Mark Sullivan, tells of the heroic efforts of Italians who brought Jews over the Alps during WWII, many of whom came to America. One of my favorite writers who tells stories of Italian immigrants is Adriana Trigiani, author of The Shoemaker's Wife and numerous other novels. For more Italian tales, there is the well-known series by Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1969). Also, Lithuanian-American author Ruta Sepetys' incredible story Salt to the Sea, is based on a true story of refugees on the ill-fated ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945. There is also the classic 1917 Charlie Chaplin film The Immigrant, "one of Chaplin’s finest short films and one of his personal favorites."