"Maureen Waters began writing about the Bronx in the spirit of dinnseachas, Irish place lore, as a means of recuperating from the accidental death of her son, whose story frames her own. Finding her way through the disorienting 1960s, after a girlhood tutored by nuns and inspired by the Holy Ghost, she set out on a kind of spiritual journey to recover what was valuable and life-sustaining in the Irish Catholic experience left behind.

Writing it meant coming to terms with powerful matriarchal voices that inspired both affection and immobilizing guilt. Ultimately, Crossing Highbridge is a tribute to her father, for whom storytelling was an art of healing.".

"The first in her family born in the United States, Waters grew up the "Bronx Irish" daughter of two unforgettable immigrants: her storytelling, former revolutionary father, and her fierce, IRA-supporting mother. Her life in postwar New York City was colored by Catholicism and strong cultural links to "the other side" - by Irish step dancing, the melodies of Thomas Moore, and the rituals, inflections, and harrowing memories impressed on her. Sex was a mystery.

Schoolgirls wore below-the-knee blue serge uniforms with starched white collars and cuffs. Brutal treatment at the hands of the nuns who ran her college drove Waters to transfer to a secular school." "Waters rebelled against an upbringing that seemed to wall her off from the twentieth century. She left the church, married, divorced, and became a scholar and professor at the City University of New York."--BOOK JACKET.