Michael Macdonald

American writer, the author of "All Souls: A Family History From Southie," published September 1999. Within six months, the author's first book went into it's seventh printing (selling 42,000 copies). His gripping autobiographical story tells of his upbringing in the crime-ridden projects area of Boston where drugs, racial violence, crimes and suicides were a part of everyday life. A husky Irish-American with piercing blue eyes, the 34-year-old author seems perpetually distracted and permanently coiled with intensity. He was the youngest of nine kids raised by a single mother. Not all of his siblings escaped their environment as he did, struggling for an education and reaching out to express his search. Four of his siblings died, one as an infant and two by their own hand: one died of gunshot during a robbery. A 19-year-old sister was brain-damaged by an accident during a drug-binge (in 1981) and a 13-year-old brother was arrested for the shooting death of a friend. Some of his former Southie neighbors have taken exception at MacDonald's book, heckling him at public readings. In the fall of 1999, he moved out of his Southie apartment for safety reasons Link to Wikipedia biography