Alice McDermott schept diepgaande psychologische portretten, waarin ze het leven van vrouwen uit verschillende sociale lagen onderzoekt. Haar proza staat bekend om zijn lyrische kwaliteit en scherpe inzicht in de nuances van menselijke relaties. McDermott duikt regelmatig in thema's als herinnering, verlies en de zoektocht naar identiteit in een voortdurend veranderende wereld. Haar werken zetten aan tot nadenken over de complexiteit van de menselijke ervaring en hoe het verleden ons heden vormt.
"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.
"A riveting account of women's lives on the margins of the Vietnam War, from the renowned winner of the National Book Award"--
"Pulitzer Prize finalist At Weddings and Wakes is "a brilliant, highly complex, extraordinary piece of fiction" (Chicago Tribune)"-- Provided by publisher
From National Book Award-winning author Alice McDermott, this is a portrait of the Irish-American experience in the 1940s and 1950s. Set in Catholic Brooklyn, The Ninth Hour is a story of immigrants, societal expectations, suicide, love, and forgiveness. Its a crowning achievement for one of Americas finest literary writers.
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.
Eine aus dem Blickwinkel dreier Kinder erzählte bitterzarte Familiengeschichte aus Long Island, in deren Mittelpunkt die Romanze ihrer Lieblingstante May, einer ehemaligen Nonne, mit dem Briefträger Fred steht
