![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1250058325\")
<\/i> 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<\/i> – a bit of a draining experience. McDermott’s book is a NORMAL LENGTH novel.<\/p>\nI’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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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<\/i> person.” I don’t know why that impression is coming to me, but it is. Perhaps it is how much she notices<\/i> … 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<\/i> people can be … someone who notices that stuff is probably pretty nice<\/i>.<\/p>\n
“Nice” is a highly under-rated quality.<\/p>\n
This is an odd way to talk about a book, but so far, only 10 pages in that is my response.<\/p>\n
I need to read more. And I have a warm feeling in my heart towards Alice McDermott. Her writing is very very human<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\n