One life: its pains and joys; its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion. Scattered recollections -- of childhood, of sexual awakenings, of motherhood, and of old age -- come together in this story of an unremarkable woman's unforgettable life. We first meet Marie Commeford as a child, observing her pre-Depression world from a Brooklyn stoop. An innocuous encounter with a young neighbor named Pegeen Chehab establishes the novel's bittersweet refrain....

A teenage girl, raised on the east end of Long Island among the country estates of the rich, reflects on her understanding of human nature during a seemingly idyllic summer spent with her eight-year-old cousin Daisy.

Alice McDermott's powerful new novel wittily captures the social, political and spiritual upheavals of the mid-twentieth century through the story of a family, and the changing world in which they live.
While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution, their older, more tentative brother lags behind, until he finds himself on the way to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Clare, the youngest

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A collection of essays, lectures, and observations on the art of writing fiction from Alice McDermott, winner of the National Book Award and unmatched "virtuoso of language and image" (Rebecca Steinitz, The Boston Globe)
What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction gathers the bestselling novelist Alice McDermott's pithiest wisdom about her chosen art, acquired over a lifetime as an acclaimed writer and teacher

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An compilation of essays, fiction, and cartoons on the world of food and drink from the pages of The New Yorker features contributions by Susan Orlean, Calvin Trillin, Joan Didion, Anthony Bourdain, John Cheever, and Roald Dahl.