Memoir writing is all the rage these days, everyone under the sun rushing to pen epistles about their dysfunctional families, bad marriages, battles with disease, etc., etc. I don’t mean to sound heartless, and I enjoy a good story about other people’s misery as much as the next guy, but I occasionally wonder where all this literary catharsis will end.

So why read Hungry Hill, Carole O’Malley Gaunt’s memoir about her dysfunctional motherless family, her alcoholic father who loses all desire to live, and the evil stepmother who makes life miserable for Carole and her seven brothers?

For one thing, Gaunt’s storytelling abilities are terrific. She’s never maudlin or trite, and she laces even the most pathetic scenes with just a modicum of poignant humor.

“We drive by the bakery, the stone library, the A&P, the Liberty Bar, and Mastroianni’s gas station. Back in seventh grade, I had a crush on Jackie Mastroianni. I know where’re we going, to the funeral home, to my mother’s funeral, to church, to St. Michael’s Cemetery, but I don’t have to think about all that. I’d rather think about Jackie Mastoianni in his white shirt with the rolled-up collar.”

A good memoir can evoke the spirit of a society as well as illuminate the life of a person. Hungry Hill is a fascinating portrait of a family, but it’s also a portrait of a time and place – an Irish Catholic working-class neighborhood in the early 1960s. Gaunt sees it for what it really is with all its limits and prejudice, a time when problems weren’t discussed aloud, when everyone was expected to “deal with it,” whatever “it” might be, without help from anyone.

Gaunt writes with such insight about herself and her brothers, insight marked with compassion and understanding which encourages the reader to examine their own family structure for clues about themselves. Gaunt’s reaction to her mother’s death was typical for a girl of that age and time: denial, denial, denial. As she watches her father retreat into a world of Seagram’s and Sinatra (his remedy for dealing with grief), she develops her own method of handling her mother’s loss.

“Because of him, I’ve given up mentioning the word ‘mother’ anymore. It’s not really all that hard. I pretend to myself she’s downtown shopping and I have no idea when she’s coming home.”

Although the subject matter of Hungry Hill is (sadly) all too familiar, Gaunt’s compassionate, clear-eyed treatment sheds new light on an old story. The narrative is written in short, essay-like chapters interspersed with scenes from a fictional present-day written in script format. (Gaunt, a playwright, has written a play based on this book.)

Among the chorus of voices raising memoirs these days, Hungry Hill is distinctive and well worth reading.