Dolley Carlson

Dolley Carlson is an Irish American writer whose family connections to South Boston inform her historical fiction. The Red Coat follows two Boston families across the 1940s and 1950s after Norah King, a domestic worker, asks her Beacon Hill employer for a coat intended for charity. That exchange links the working-class King family with the affluent Parkers and lets Carlson examine migration, class, Catholic community, family loyalty, and changing opportunities for women. The 2018 Skyhorse edition is identified as Carlson’s first novel after four nonfiction books. Carlson’s earlier publications include gift books created with illustrator Kathleen O’Malley. In The Red Coat, an ordinary object carries memories and consequences between generations, giving the large cast a shared point of connection while the contrasting households face courtship, work, loss, and social prejudice.