El intimacy as a literary genre it acquires Alice mcdermott the brilliant connotation of an almost philosophical transcendence. Because in that observing behind the peephole or through windows, with their curtains carelessly open, we discover the authentic brightness of everyday life.
From doors inward, each one assumes his truest modus vivendi. Between his vision of the world, resilience, survival when he plays or routine, which mark the passage of time that is slow in the moment and precipitous in its general appearance.
The author's Irish roots serve to develop a particular atmosphere within that New York so prone to miscegenation, but also to the development of independent universes. Thus its plots open us to worlds of hypnotic concentric force. Worlds that catch with that narrative cadence that makes the everyday precious; that overflows the humanism closest to our feet to end up inhabiting other people's bodies.
Top 3 Recommended Novels by Alice McDermott
Someone
The most optimistic of McDermott's stories. A novel loaded with that aroma of happiness that also leaves its wake of melancholy. Curious that it must be from old age, with its pause, when that redoubt of joy is discovered, conquered despite everything.
Life, with its little joys and moments of happiness, but also with its sadness and disconcerting ups and downs, is the subject of this extraordinary novel. The seemingly scattered and disordered memories of Marie Commeford, the protagonist and narrator of this story, a New Yorker of Irish origin, wrap us in an invisible spider web in which childhood, sexual awakening, first loves, motherhood, formation of a family and old age.
In his narrative, which spans seven decades of life in Brooklyn, the scenes fit together with an astonishing lightness and naturalness, turning what was apparently an existence like so many others into exciting. A novel that reconciles us with everyday disappointments and illusions, with the small demands of life that so often dominate and condition us, and that confirms Alice McDermott (winner of the National Book Award and two-time Pulitzer finalist) as one of the most prominent contemporary American writers.
A charming man
No other family gathering is as relevant as the funeral. The rest are transitory festivals with pretenses of eternity. There is no marriage, no birthday or pregnancy announcement that carries the significance of a meeting marked by the end, by the gap and emptiness of it.
Billy Lynch just died. But, in the memory of his family and friends, he is still more alive than ever. After the rainy funeral, in the low-voiced conversations that ensued throughout that day, everyone agrees that Billy had been a great guy, at least on the increasingly rare occasions when he was sober.
But nobody wants to remember that because, deep down, they understand that Billy carried his whole life with the premature death of Eva, his Irish fiancée. Later, he would meet the kind, resigned and always understanding Maeve, his current widow.
The ninth hour
The most drastic generational change is that of this father who decides to leave before his son has arrived into this world. One of those strident and disconcerting decisions that lead us to think about all the pain that a human soul can harbor. But it's always worse for those who stay.
On a dark winter afternoon in early XNUMXth century Brooklyn, a young Irish immigrant who has just been fired convinces his wife, who is about to give birth, to go shopping. Once alone in the apartment, he turns on the gas and commits suicide. Sister St. Savior, a nun from a nearby convent, will be the one to help Annie, the poor widow, rebuild her life.
Annie will work for many years as an ironer in the convent laundry. His daughter Sally, the true protagonist of the story, will grow up between piles of white clothes and the constant hiss of the iron but, when the time comes, she must choose her own path in life.
The ninth hour is a beautiful novel, deeply human, about forgiveness, generosity and forgetfulness. With this story that runs through three generations of a small Brooklyn neighborhood, Alice McDermott once again proves that she is one of the most notable American writers working.
