Alice McDermott
Author
Language
English
Description
On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove--to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife--"that the hours of his life belong to himself alone." In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun, a Little Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child....
2) Someone
Author
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
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....
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
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 deńouement, their affair, too, approaches...
4) Absolution
Author
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
In Saigon in 1963, two young American wives form a wary alliance. Tricia is a starry-eyed newlywed, married to a rising oil engineer "on loan" to US Navy Intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a talented hostess and determined altruist, on a mission to relieve the "wretchedness" she sees all around her. When Tricia miscarries, Charlene sweeps her into a cabal of well-dressed do-gooder American wives. Armed with...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
A young woman, cousin to the late Billy Lynch who has just died of alcoholism, traces the story of his lost love, discovering her own father's role in trying to keep Billy from being hurt by the truth about Eva, and contemplating the effect her father's lie had on the rest of the family.
6) That night
Author
Publisher
Delta
Pub. Date
c1987.
Language
English
Description
On a warm suburban night, the sound of lawn sprinklers is drowned out by the rumble of hot rods. Suddenly, a car careens onto a family's neat front yard, teenage boys spill out brandishing chains and leather, and a young man cries out for the girl he loves. Tonight, fathers will pick up snow shovels and rakes to defend their turf, and children will witness a battle fuelled by fierce and true love. This is the night they will talk about and remember...
Author
Publisher
Macmillan Audio
Pub. Date
2006
Language
English
Description
Alice McDermott's powerful novel is a vivid portrait of an American family in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Witty, compassionate, and wry, it captures the social, political, and spiritual upheavals of those decades through the experiences of a middle-class couple, their four children, and the changing worlds in which they live.
While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution,...
Author
Publisher
Macmillan Audio
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Description
A collection of essays, lectures, and observations on the art of writing fiction from an expert novelist.
Look: Artistic inspiration, religious faith, does not come to most of us with the beating of wings or the leaping of flames or the cinematic, middle-of-the-night aha moment that cuts to an acceptance speech in Stockholm. It comes through long effort, through moving ahead and falling back, through working in the dark. It comes to us in moments...