Alice McDermott Book order

* 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.

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.

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)

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.

The National Book Award-winning author chronicles the ordinary life of a woman named Marie, from her childhood to old age, as she experiences the changing world of her Irish-American enclave in Brooklyn, in this novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived.

The New York Times Bestselling Author of After This and Charming Billy Elizabeth Connelly, editor at a New York vanity press, sells the dream of publication (admittedly, to writers of questionable talent). Stories of true emotional depth rarely cross her desk. But when a young writer named Tupper Daniels walks in, bearing an unfinished novel, Elizabeth is drawn to both the novelist and his story-a lyrical tale about a man in love with more than one woman at once. Tupper's manuscript unlocks memories of her own secretive father, who himself may have been a bigamist. As Elizabeth and Tupper search for the perfect dénouement, their affair, too, approaches a most unexpected and poignant coda. A brilliant debut from one of our most celebrated authors, A Bigamist's Daughter is "a wise, sad, witty novel about men and women, God, hope, love, illusion, and fiction itself" (Newsweek).

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.

"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)"--

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."

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.