The Life of Ann Mcmahon

A Revolution Seen from Afar

This is a parable of my generation; a book about what they have made us and what we wanted to be; an acknowledgment that we cannot change the others if we dont first changes ourselves; a surrender to the evidence that changing is a slow and difficult process and it is easier to be in our future the same persons we were in our past; it represents the unfinished work of a generation that had decided to run ahead faster than they could. Ann McMahon was born on June 10, 1946, in Riverton, NJ. She was the second child of a family of Irish immigrants. She receives a traditional catholic education and learns from her mother what church and school cannot teach; the art of living. As a child, life looked like a simple game easy to play. Sustained by the basic principles of conformist living Ann goes, along with all the baby boomers, through the shock waves of her generation; the cultural revolution, the women liberation movement, the Vietnam war, the civil right movement, the Beat generation etc Resolved not to be swayed by the power and appeal of these events she looks at them from a safe distance and proceeds with few doubts and much determination toward her simple dream: a happy family with husband and children. Life, however,comes to be a game difficult to play and becomes marred by questions without simple answers: the tragic death of her sister, the unforeseen relationship with her brother, the unsettled friendship with Cathy, the concealed love for Rob, the overwhelming presence of her mother, the domineering husband, the childrens choices. Unable to change herself or everybody around her, she turns, like others in this story, into a disheartened guard and prisoner of her own culture.