She recalled the rocks and mists of the West of Ireland, and she went to the sands and mists of the West of America. Her friends included poets and rebels including the Easter Rising's Patrick Pearse. She brought Celtic heroes to Berkeley, where she lectured at the university to rapt audiences. Mostly, however, Young played out her life in the presence of her stories, which she wrote and spoke in her own mystical cloud. Murphy, who teaches community classes on Irish culture, gives this enlightened spirit room to be herself as rebel, bard and teacher, and makes it clear that Young's attraction to such alternate groups as the dune talkers (Californians living on and communicating with coastal sand dunes in the 1930s and 1940s) came from shared experience, which Young took as the ultimate reality. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)