Book Notes: Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy

I just started Alice McDermott’s novel Charming Billy this morning. I’ve had it for years, since it won the National Book Award, and just now, on impulse I picked it up. Too much non-fiction recently, and the last novel I read was Underworld – a bit of a draining experience. McDermott’s book is a NORMAL LENGTH novel.

I’m very much looking forward to it. The style is easy, and there are lots of different voices. The first scene is a gathering after a funeral (the funeral of the “Billy” of the title) – 49 people gather in a battered old pub in Queens, after the graveyard ceremony, and sit, and talk about the dear departed (raging alcoholic) Billy.

So far, that’s it. But it’s all dialogue. There isn’t classic exposition – no background given in regular narrative. You are tossed right into the middle of this family, and you listen to them reminisce, and you have to put things together yourself.

Her eye for dialogue is wonderful. You know what I really feel like so far? I feel like: “Wow. Alice McDermott seems like she must be a really nice person.” I don’t know why that impression is coming to me, but it is. Perhaps it is how much she notices … and someone who notices so much about her fellow human beings … and doesn’t notice just the underbelly, the ugly stuff, the cynical stuff … but the good intentions, and how kind people can be … someone who notices that stuff is probably pretty nice.

“Nice” is a highly under-rated quality.

This is an odd way to talk about a book, but so far, only 10 pages in that is my response.

I need to read more. And I have a warm feeling in my heart towards Alice McDermott. Her writing is very very human.