Alice McDermott crea profundos retratos psicológicos, explorando la vida de mujeres en diversas capas sociales. Su prosa es reconocida por su cualidad lírica y su aguda perspicacia en los matices de las relaciones humanas. McDermott frecuentemente profundiza en temas de memoria, pérdida y la búsqueda de identidad en un mundo en constante cambio. Sus obras provocan la contemplación sobre las complejidades de la experiencia humana y cómo el pasado moldea nuestro presente.
"In That Night, New York Times bestselling author Alice McDermott "has taken a suburban teenage romance and pregnancy and infused it with the power, the ominousness, and the star-crossed romanticism of a contemporary Romeo and Juliet" (Chicago Tribune)"--
The quietest life can resonate the longest. A beautiful, bittersweet masterpiece about a remarkable journey of the heart.
"Pulitzer Prize finalist At Weddings and Wakes is "a brilliant, highly complex, extraordinary piece of fiction" (Chicago Tribune)"-- Provided by publisher
New; pristine. See scans and description. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017. The issued-signed edition, with its own ISBN 9780374904043 (see rear jacket panel scan), as well as the First Edition / First Printing ISBN 9780374280147 (see copyright page scan), of National Book Award winner Alice McDermott's 2017 title, The Ninth Hour. Octavo, illustrated jacket, very light gray boards, black spine imprinting, 247 pp. New, in sealed storage since purchase; on premises. See scans. Ships in a new, sturdy, protective box - not a bag. L71 (Signed Edition. Two ISBNs: Signed Ed. ISBN 9780374904043 & 1st/1st Printing ISBN 9780374280147)
Fifteen is a year of clarity; you're still one of the kids, but you're finally beginning to unlock the mysteries of adult behavior. In her luminous novel Child of My Heart , Alice McDermott's narrator is a 15-year-old girl who has two qualities that give her access to the secret lives of adults: she's beautiful, and she looks after their children. Her beauty has already shaped her life. Her parents have moved the family to the east end of Long Island in hopes of finding her a wealthy husband, or at least a fancy crowd to run with. Here she babysits the children of the rich, whose fathers demonstrate their relative decency by making passes at her, or not. The novel spans a dreamy summer as our heroine spends her days with her various charges at the beach, happily leading her crew on home-grown, rather sweet adventures. Among the kids she looks after is a toddler whose father is a famous, aging artist. The narrator's preternatural acuity is apparent in this exchange with a new client: "Mrs. Richardson learned by direct inquiry that I lived in that sweet cottage with the dahlias (interested) and went to the academy (more interested) and babysat for this child of the famous artist (most interested) down the road."
Elizabeth Connelly sits in a New York office that looks like a real editor’s, but isn’t quite. Employed at a vanity press, Elizabeth watches the real world—of real struggles, passion, pain, and love—spin around her. Until one day, a young writer comes to her with a novel about a man who loves more than one woman at once. And suddenly Elizabeth will be awakened from her young urban professional slumber—by a man’s real touch, by a real story in search of an ending, by the unraveling of the greatest masquerade of all—in Alice McDermott’s luminous novel of memory, revelation, and desire.
Billy Lynch's family and friends have gathered to comfort his widow, and to pay their respects to one of the last great romantics. As they trade tales of his famous humor, immense charm, and consuming sorrow, a complex portrait emerges of an enigmatic man, a loyal friend, a beloved husband, an incurable alcoholic. Alice McDermott's striking novel, "Charming Billy," is a study of the lies that bind and the weight of familial love, of the way good intentions can be as destructive as the truth they were meant to hide. "Charming Billy" is the winner of the 1998 National Book Award for Fiction.
A mesmerising portrait of working-class family life in mid-twentieth century America, and a masterful evocation of sibling rivalry in the midst of the Vietnam War and the sexual revolution.
The collection features insightful essays, lectures, and observations from acclaimed author Alice McDermott, celebrated for her mastery of language and imagery. Through her reflections on the craft of writing fiction, McDermott shares her unique perspective on storytelling, exploring the nuances of character development and narrative structure. This work offers both aspiring writers and literature enthusiasts a deeper understanding of the artistry involved in creating compelling fiction.
* THE TOP 10 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * 'One of the finest contemporary novels I've read ... A moral masterpiece' ANN PATCHETT 'Her writing has a luminous kind of clarity, a grace and scope that fills me with wonder' RACHEL JOYCE 'Damning and dazzling ... The story of a Vietnam we never got in history class' OPRAH DAILY ----------------- You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women, I mean. The wives. 1963. Saigon. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney working for US Navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. The two women form a wary alliance as they struggle to balance the pressure to be respectable wives for their ambitious husbands, with their own dubious impulses to "do good" for the people of Vietnam. Sixty years later, Charlene's daughter, spurred by an encounter with an aging Vietnam veteran, reaches out to Tricia. Together, they look back at their time in Saigon, discovering how their lives as women on the periphery -- of politics, of history, of war, of their husbands' convictions -- have been shaped and burdened by the unintended consequences of America's tragic interference in Southeast Asia. Exploring the disaster of the Vietnam War through the lives built by American wives in 1960s Saigon, this is a virtuosic novel about folly and grace, obligation, sacrifice and the quest for absolution in a broken world.