Monaghan, Father of Buck

An immigrant to the U.S., Monaghan's father brags about his "Shanty Irish" origins, but at the time of "Ad Astra," he is a self-made millionaire who began his rise to wealth by collecting refuse and finally by building municipal sewage systems. Monaghan quotes him: "When you're with your fine friends, the fathers and mothers and sisters of them you met at Yale, ye might just remind them that every man is the slave of his own refuse and so your old dad they would be sending around to the forty-story back doors of their kitchens is the king of them all" (415).