Northshore Magazine

Northshore April 2016

Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.

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126 in-depth FACES back to school with three of his friends after a road trip to Key West. The protagonist is also the narrator. What we read is what he recalls as he embarks on this journey of redemption. "Augustine is a college senior who is respon- sible for some bad things," Hartigan says. "There's a cheat- ing scandal and some broken hearts, but mostly he feels responsible for killing two of his friends and for keeping his involvement in their deaths a secret. Right from the outset, the reader is dropped into Augustine's mind." Having been trained in literary studies, it is no surprise that Hartigan's influences are the legendary authors of the Western canon. On the website for Stone Angels, Hartigan notes, "I am a sucker for the classics." He cites Macbeth as his favorite Shakespearian play, and he and his wife named their daughter Cordelia after a character from King Lear, but clearly his writing has been influenced by Hamlet. Prince Hamlet is said to be the first modern character in literature (even though he appeared a century and a half before the Enlighten- ment), because through him the author gives his audi- ence insight into a character's conscious moral delibera- tion. This is the narrative approach Hartigan employs with Augustine Shaw. The novel earned Hartigan the Merrimack Media Outstanding Writer Award. " W e i n v i t e y o u t o e x p e r i e n c e o u r o u t s t a n d i n g s e r v i c e w i t h a n e x p e r t i s e i n h a i r f a s h i o n a n d m a i n t e n a n c e t h a t t r a n s c e n d s t h e o r d i n a r y."

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