Occupation Novelist Genre Satire, black comedy | Notable works Dooley's Delusion Name Tom McHale | |
Died November 12, 1994(1994-11-12) (aged 92) | ||
Thomas Joseph "Tom" McHale (May 7, 1902 – November 12, 1994) was an American novelist. He was the author of Dooley's Delusion, a novel published in 1972, a story about the "Great West" (Sioux City) set in the 1880s and 1890s.
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Biography
McHale was born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa and drew upon his own Irish Catholic boyhood in his writing. He was known in Iowa for his use of "Irish mythology and Catholic theology," a unique style not used by other Iowa writers. In 1972, when McHale published Dooley's Delusion, he was employed as a real estate executive in Dallas, Texas. He spent five years researching the history of Sioux City before he wrote the book.
Dooley's Delusion (1971) is religious fiction about the struggle between two groups of Irish-Catholic parishioners over their relocation to St. Joseph Church in Sioux City, Iowa prior to the panic of 1893. Protagonist Gabriel Dooley is a member of the impoverished "shanty Irish" living in Sioux City. He has dreams of becoming a Catholic priest in his native Ireland. A bitter quarrel takes place between the Irish and the affluent citizens of Sioux City who live on the "other side of the tracks."
McHale's papers are kept in the special collections of the library of the University of Iowa.