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Title: Charming Billy by Alice McDermott ISBN: 0-385-33334-X Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 12 January, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.96 (271 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Not-So-Charming
Comment: McDermott is a skillful writer and weaves thoughtful plots with substance. However, Charming Billy seems to create a massive void between reader and character(s)...there was such distance between me and the story...I did not quite believe the caricature snapshots of how wonderfully charming Billy was...after all, he was drunk most of the time. AFter 30 years of drinking and allowing alcohol to become the most hotly pursued thing in one's life, I think the charm has probably worn off a bit(at least in the real world). I enjoyed the Irish Catholic humor, the narration for the most part, and the ironies. But just when I got a bit comfortable and enjoyed getting to know a character, McDermott switched voices, characters, and created a frustrating read.
I gave it 3 stars for the authentic effort, and McDermott's play on words. For the most part, it just "didn't work."
Rating: 2
Summary: lacking charm and construction
Comment: The first chapter of this book has the quiet charm and colorful charactors one would expect, but it quickly devolves into a confused meander through side stories, secondary charactors and long passages (pages and chapters) of people sitting and telling the story to someone else - at a wake, a bar, etc, creating a distance between the reader and a flattening of any plot tension. This is heightened by the undefined narrator/lens figure. Yes, she is the daughter of Billy's good friend, but beyond being there as a witness to the conversations and reminiscences, she plays no narrative role, has no stake in the story, no life outside the story, in short, she is flat. Why McDermott chose this way to construct the story is beyond me - the occaisional interjections of the narrator's first person voice every 30 pages are a disruption that contributes nothing to the story.
The main story, of a man who is told by his best friend his fiancee has died, when she (we learn in first chapter) married someone else, could have been interesting, but it is never developed as other charactors' loves and work tales take over. The whole thing feels like listening to someone else's family stories where you don't really know who is who, and after awhile, don't care.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Wonderfully Written Novel
Comment: Alice McDermott is a great writer and this novel about an Irish American alcoholic is a minor masterpiece. McDermott's style is to time slice anecdotes about Billy during thirty years of life. We meet the young charmer full of romantic yearnings about love. And we see the pathetic drunkard who full of Catholic dogma tries to quit drinking through love of Christ. While Billy is the title character, it is his cousin who is the star of the novel. I would urge anyone who has an interest in Irish Americana, Catholic fiction or just plain good writing to read the novel. You will enjoy it.
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Title: At Weddings and Wakes by Alice McDermott ISBN: 0385319851 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 12 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott ISBN: 0374121230 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 12 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: That Night by Alice McDermott ISBN: 0385333307 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 12 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: A Bigamist's Daughter by Alice McDermott ISBN: 0385333293 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 12 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Three Junes by Julia Glass, Julia Glass ISBN: 0385721420 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 22 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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