GOOD CHARACTERIZATION, 13 Jun 2003
If you like books about children, hop aboard.

In the summer of this year, we are introduced to Theresa, the expert baby-sitter who entertains her cousin Daisy up from Queens Village for the entire summer. Theresa works for the wealthy folk around her area, looking after their toddlers and sometimes walking and taking care of the owners pets.

She is so tender towards her cousin Daisy's, it's totally touching. Meet Flora the toddler who is constantly under her care and whose father is a painter, and quite attracted to Theresa.....the Morans kids of Janey, Judy, June
Tony and Petey and the Kaufmans, the Swansons and the rest of the neighborhood.

The story line was interesting and the characters more so, but it's a book that will keep you turning the pages as you will want to know what happens to these lovely children who spend their days on the beach and who dream about fairies and lollipops on weeping cherry trees.

A good holiday read.

A Great Deal in a Brief Book, 15 Mar 2003
This book is the first from Alice McDermott since, "Charming Billy", won the National Book Award in 1998. A book with that type of success is certain to create very high expectations for the next work, and while, "Child Of My Heart", is very good I think it is unfair to compare it to the writer's previous work. Few authors turn out books that routinely are considered the best by those who decide awards.

The book is a narrative as shared by a woman of her memories of a summer when she was 15. I think this is an important point, for some seem to find this 15 years old girl as lacking credibility. These are memories and they are subject to all the forms of error that define what memory is. There is no doubt the narrator is precocious by any measure, she has an almost Mary Poppins like effect on the children she cares for, and by her account the animals she watches as well. She is an only child, she is clearly very bright, and if she was as mature as her stunning good looks, the memories seemed to me to be credible. Certain of the remembered thoughts may be enhanced or edited, but I do not believe they are made from whole cloth.

She is far from perfect and the one error she does make has consequences. Whether her taking action with her little cousin would have made a difference is unlikely, but the author keeps that to herself. Our narrator may know what she is dealing with and chooses to make the most of the summer as she can, not fighting the inevitable. For this is a confident young woman as becomes apparent in how she portrays MaCduff in her school play, defying her teachers, Nuns, to do as she feels appropriate.

She also has been put in the strange situation of being an only child situated to live amongst those who might help her become more than her parents are. She lives on a portion of Long Island that is not fashionable but gives her access to the people and the homes they occupy to network, and be exposed to them, whether she pursues it or not.

My main criticism is that there is too much in too short a book. Extremely complex relationships are touched on as opposed to explored. This may have been intentional as memories are never as complete as the real time event, but again that is a detail only the author knows. I very much enjoy the manner by which Alice McDermott writes, and for me that is always a great part of any book. All of the issues and situations may not have been completed for the reader, but that hardly makes the book unique. The book is definitely a worthwhile read from a talented author.

GOOD CHARACTERIZATION, 13 Jun 2003
If you like books about children, hop aboard.

In the summer of this year, we are introduced to Theresa, the expert baby-sitter who entertains her cousin Daisy up from Queens Village for the entire summer. Theresa works for the wealthy folk around her area, looking after their toddlers and sometimes walking and taking care of the owners pets.

She is so tender towards her cousin Daisy's, it's totally touching. Meet Flora the toddler who is constantly under her care and whose father is a painter, and quite attracted to Theresa.....the Morans kids of Janey, Judy, June
Tony and Petey and the Kaufmans, the Swansons and the rest of the neighborhood.

The story line was interesting and the characters more so, but it's a book that will keep you turning the pages as you will want to know what happens to these lovely children who spend their days on the beach and who dream about fairies and lollipops on weeping cherry trees.

A good holiday read.

A Great Deal in a Brief Book, 15 Mar 2003
This book is the first from Alice McDermott since, "Charming Billy", won the National Book Award in 1998. A book with that type of success is certain to create very high expectations for the next work, and while, "Child Of My Heart", is very good I think it is unfair to compare it to the writer's previous work. Few authors turn out books that routinely are considered the best by those who decide awards.

The book is a narrative as shared by a woman of her memories of a summer when she was 15. I think this is an important point, for some seem to find this 15 years old girl as lacking credibility. These are memories and they are subject to all the forms of error that define what memory is. There is no doubt the narrator is precocious by any measure, she has an almost Mary Poppins like effect on the children she cares for, and by her account the animals she watches as well. She is an only child, she is clearly very bright, and if she was as mature as her stunning good looks, the memories seemed to me to be credible. Certain of the remembered thoughts may be enhanced or edited, but I do not believe they are made from whole cloth.

She is far from perfect and the one error she does make has consequences. Whether her taking action with her little cousin would have made a difference is unlikely, but the author keeps that to herself. Our narrator may know what she is dealing with and chooses to make the most of the summer as she can, not fighting the inevitable. For this is a confident young woman as becomes apparent in how she portrays MaCduff in her school play, defying her teachers, Nuns, to do as she feels appropriate.

She also has been put in the strange situation of being an only child situated to live amongst those who might help her become more than her parents are. She lives on a portion of Long Island that is not fashionable but gives her access to the people and the homes they occupy to network, and be exposed to them, whether she pursues it or not.

My main criticism is that there is too much in too short a book. Extremely complex relationships are touched on as opposed to explored. This may have been intentional as memories are never as complete as the real time event, but again that is a detail only the author knows. I very much enjoy the manner by which Alice McDermott writes, and for me that is always a great part of any book. All of the issues and situations may not have been completed for the reader, but that hardly makes the book unique. The book is definitely a worthwhile read from a talented author.

Potential but needed more development, 30 Jul 1999
This book had such potential, but the characters were so static and did not develop or mature in any way throughout the novel. I was very disappointed in the protagonist's unemotional responses to emotional situations and subjects. McDermott does have a beautiful style of writing, but she did not take these characters to the level that she could have. The ending was anti-climatic and frustrating.

Puh-leeaze!, 11 Jun 1999
I must say that this is the first time I'm angry at myself for taking money out of my pocket to put it in someone else's. What a waste of my precious dollars and time. There was nothing appealing about this book--not the plot, the style nor the characters. Thumbs down.

Enough already!, 27 May 1999
I am so sick of this character. How many - single women in their 20's who live on their own in a big city with powerful careers and no life outside of it, who are independent enough to have sex and not care, yet can't focus on anything else except sex and love - do I have to read about? I was this woman for a good number of years, but I had a lot more going on in my life. Please - SOMEBODY give these characters some dimension.

Irritating, 26 May 1999
At first I loved this story of an editor at a vanity publishing house as she wends her way through the deceptive and demeaning relationships with her authors, and specifically with one, who quickly (and foolishly, in my opinion) becomes her lover. But I soon became impatient with the characters and endless obsessing, condescension and duplicity. Despite her good writing style, McDermott's novels leave me with an unpleasant taste for her characters..

A woman's view of men and love, 04 Mar 1999
A wonderful examination of male-female relationships. The book is funny, it is insightful, it is a revelation to me, a a man. I suspected, but was not clued in to the workings of the female mind. The author ( as in Charming Billy ) is fascinated with the concept of obsessive love. And posits that we have the capacity to love many in a lifetime; star crossed lovers are fine for Romeo and Juliette, but not in the real world. She sees the choices and tradeoffs which we face,and presents them in a most thoughtful and engaging way.

I really liked this book. More than her later, "Charming Billy".

She is a talented writer.

Charming Billy is a devastating account of the power of longing and lies, love's tenacity and resignations hold. Even at his funeral party, Billy Lynch's life remains up for debate. This soft-spoken, poetry lover's drinking was as legendary among his Queens', New York, family and friends as was his disappointment in love. But the latter, as his cousin Dennis knows, "was, after all, yet another sweet romance to preserve." After World War II, both young men had spent one sun-swept week on Long Island, renovating a house and falling in with two Irish sisters--nannies to a wealthy family--"marvelling, marvelling still, that this Eden was here, at the other end of the same island on which they had spent their lives." By the end of their idyll, Billy and Eva were engaged, though she was set to return to County Wicklow. Determined to earn enough money to bring her, her family, and if necessary her entire village back to the US, Billy took two jobs, one of which would indenture him for years. But despite the money he sent, Eva never returned, and then was suddenly dead of pneumonia. The true tragedy is that she had simply kept her fare and married someone else--a secret Dennis keeps for the next 30 years as he watches Billy fall into a loveless marriage and the self-administered anaesthesia of alcohol. Alice McDermott's quiet, striking novel is a study of the lies that bind and the weight of familial wishes. She seems far less interested in the shock of revelation than in her characters' power to live through personal disaster. As Dennis's daughter pieces together Billy's real history, she also learns of the accommodations her own family had long made--and discovers that good intentions can be as destructive as the truth they mean to hide. Amazon.com

GOOD CHARACTERIZATION, 13 Jun 2003
If you like books about children, hop aboard.

In the summer of this year, we are introduced to Theresa, the expert baby-sitter who entertains her cousin Daisy up from Queens Village for the entire summer. Theresa works for the wealthy folk around her area, looking after their toddlers and sometimes walking and taking care of the owners pets.

She is so tender towards her cousin Daisy's, it's totally touching. Meet Flora the toddler who is constantly under her care and whose father is a painter, and quite attracted to Theresa.....the Morans kids of Janey, Judy, June
Tony and Petey and the Kaufmans, the Swansons and the rest of the neighborhood.

The story line was interesting and the characters more so, but it's a book that will keep you turning the pages as you will want to know what happens to these lovely children who spend their days on the beach and who dream about fairies and lollipops on weeping cherry trees.

A good holiday read.

A Great Deal in a Brief Book, 15 Mar 2003
This book is the first from Alice McDermott since, "Charming Billy", won the National Book Award in 1998. A book with that type of success is certain to create very high expectations for the next work, and while, "Child Of My Heart", is very good I think it is unfair to compare it to the writer's previous work. Few authors turn out books that routinely are considered the best by those who decide awards.

The book is a narrative as shared by a woman of her memories of a summer when she was 15. I think this is an important point, for some seem to find this 15 years old girl as lacking credibility. These are memories and they are subject to all the forms of error that define what memory is. There is no doubt the narrator is precocious by any measure, she has an almost Mary Poppins like effect on the children she cares for, and by her account the animals she watches as well. She is an only child, she is clearly very bright, and if she was as mature as her stunning good looks, the memories seemed to me to be credible. Certain of the remembered thoughts may be enhanced or edited, but I do not believe they are made from whole cloth.

She is far from perfect and the one error she does make has consequences. Whether her taking action with her little cousin would have made a difference is unlikely, but the author keeps that to herself. Our narrator may know what she is dealing with and chooses to make the most of the summer as she can, not fighting the inevitable. For this is a confident young woman as becomes apparent in how she portrays MaCduff in her school play, defying her teachers, Nuns, to do as she feels appropriate.

She also has been put in the strange situation of being an only child situated to live amongst those who might help her become more than her parents are. She lives on a portion of Long Island that is not fashionable but gives her access to the people and the homes they occupy to network, and be exposed to them, whether she pursues it or not.

My main criticism is that there is too much in too short a book. Extremely complex relationships are touched on as opposed to explored. This may have been intentional as memories are never as complete as the real time event, but again that is a detail only the author knows. I very much enjoy the manner by which Alice McDermott writes, and for me that is always a great part of any book. All of the issues and situations may not have been completed for the reader, but that hardly makes the book unique. The book is definitely a worthwhile read from a talented author.

Potential but needed more development, 30 Jul 1999
This book had such potential, but the characters were so static and did not develop or mature in any way throughout the novel. I was very disappointed in the protagonist's unemotional responses to emotional situations and subjects. McDermott does have a beautiful style of writing, but she did not take these characters to the level that she could have. The ending was anti-climatic and frustrating.

Puh-leeaze!, 11 Jun 1999
I must say that this is the first time I'm angry at myself for taking money out of my pocket to put it in someone else's. What a waste of my precious dollars and time. There was nothing appealing about this book--not the plot, the style nor the characters. Thumbs down.

Enough already!, 27 May 1999
I am so sick of this character. How many - single women in their 20's who live on their own in a big city with powerful careers and no life outside of it, who are independent enough to have sex and not care, yet can't focus on anything else except sex and love - do I have to read about? I was this woman for a good number of years, but I had a lot more going on in my life. Please - SOMEBODY give these characters some dimension.

Irritating, 26 May 1999
At first I loved this story of an editor at a vanity publishing house as she wends her way through the deceptive and demeaning relationships with her authors, and specifically with one, who quickly (and foolishly, in my opinion) becomes her lover. But I soon became impatient with the characters and endless obsessing, condescension and duplicity. Despite her good writing style, McDermott's novels leave me with an unpleasant taste for her characters..

A woman's view of men and love, 04 Mar 1999
A wonderful examination of male-female relationships. The book is funny, it is insightful, it is a revelation to me, a a man. I suspected, but was not clued in to the workings of the female mind. The author ( as in Charming Billy ) is fascinated with the concept of obsessive love. And posits that we have the capacity to love many in a lifetime; star crossed lovers are fine for Romeo and Juliette, but not in the real world. She sees the choices and tradeoffs which we face,and presents them in a most thoughtful and engaging way.

I really liked this book. More than her later, "Charming Billy".

She is a talented writer.

Wonderful, bittersweet book, 17 Jul 2008
I enjoyed Charming Billy because it is sweet and nostalgic. It is a sensitive book in which feelings play the major part. Its best scenes take place on Long Island, just after the war, when Billy and his cousin meet the Irish girls who will transform their lives. The descriptions are atmospheric, the action slow-paced, the situations understated.

This book is like a rose whose petals are plucked one by one. It begins with Billy's funeral. Piece by piece, it tells the chain of events that has led to his death, from the fateful encounter with the Irish girl, in his early adulthood. Billy is sentimental. Billy wants to believe not just in love, but that love is what gives meaning to life. Ultimately this only leads to waste, as he is duped by a worthless woman and protected against his own best interests by his well-meaning cousin. Or does it? Was his belief, his sincerity what made Billy charming? Ms McDermott lets us decide.

The book has interesting contrasts between the post-war and depression years, and more recent times. It is set among the Irish-American community. While it is different in style from the darkly sarcastic and humorous Angela's Ashes, there are intriguing comparisons to make between the two, and Charming Billy may be worth reading as a `sequel' to the Irish book.

Charming Billy - an all time favourite, 31 Jul 2006
I truly loved this book and I think it will always be special to me. First time I tried it I could not get into it at all but I persevered and am so glad that I did. I've recommended it to friends and family.
I found it heartbreaking, inspiring, uplifting, moving.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 19 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 01 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

Warm and Wise, 21 Dec 2002
On the afternoon of Billy Lynch's funeral, his family and friends gather at a New York restaurant to discuss this charismatic man whom "everyone loved" and who, apparently, "died of drink." Questions abound: Why would Billy drink himself to death? How unhappy was he in his marriage to the plain-but-faithful Maeve? And what of Eva, his first love? If Billy had managed to have a future with Eva, would his life have taken a different turn? Was Billy's pathetic outcome just a matter of fate?

The narrator of Charming Billy is a cousin-once-removed of the protagonist, the daughter of Billy's best friend, Dennis, and probably the author's alter ego. Although intelligent and perceptive, the narrator is also rather critical of the pride, prejudice, sexism, racism, faith and clannish behavior she observes in her elders.

Charming Billy is a wonderful story of second and third-generation Irish-Americans, most of whom are blood relatives and live and love and laugh and drink and work for Consolidated Edison in the Queens borough of New York City. In the hands of a lesser author, a book such as Charming Billy might be one in which we would soon lose interest, but McDermott, a wonderful writer, brings Billy to life as well as illuminating the lives of this tightly-knit Irish-American community.

The opening scene, in a restaurant following Billy's funeral, is a brilliant social satire reminiscent of James T. Farrell's stories about Irish-Americans in Chicago, Can All This Grandeur Perish, written in 1937. McDermott, however, is less scathing, more sentimental and humorous, than was Farrell.

The characters in Charming Billy are warmly and well-drawn. They all have names like Dennis and Danny and Kevin and Rosemary and Bridie and Maeve. They are patriotic Americans, to be sure, but still proud of their Irish heritage and some of them even speak with a brogue. Part of the value of this warm and wonderful novel lies in the concern and respect with which McDermott treats past and current Irish-American issues.

McDermott writes in prose so masterful that we can almost hear the delightful Irish lilt in the voices of the speakers. There is a beautifully rhythmic cadence that captures the ebb and flow of conversation perfectly and one that never fails to involve the reader on an intensely emotional level. At the post-funeral dinner, Billy's sister takes the pragmatic view that "Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids nor not...Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same." Billy's bachelor friend and drinking partner, Dan Lynch, defends Billy, taking a more romantic view of Billy's life: "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed...But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate."

Why did Billy Lynch's life turn out so miserably? Why did this charming and lovable man "die of drink?" That is the central mystery, the question on which this novel of personal revelation turns. As the narrator tries to make sense of Billy's life, she finds herself also investigating both her father's life and her own as well. As she uncovers first one fact and then another, the mystery of "why" and "why not" only deepens.

It cannot be denied that Billy Lynch was a man seduced by the bar. "A world where love...could be spoken of by a hand on the shoulder, a fresh drink placed on the bar, Good to see you, through welling tears, real ones now, Ah, Billy, it's always good to see you. Dark, sparkling, sprinkled with moments when the sound and smell and sight of the place...transported him, however briefly, to a summer night long ago when he was young and life was all promise."

Any sensitive reader will find Charming Billy a wonderful investigation into the motivations and mysteries of life and love as written by one of the best authors of the twentieth century.

Charming Billy is a devastating account of the power of longing and lies, love's tenacity and resignations hold. Even at his funeral party, Billy Lynch's life remains up for debate. This soft-spoken, poetry lover's drinking was as legendary among his Queens', New York, family and friends as was his disappointment in love. But the latter, as his cousin Dennis knows, "was, after all, yet another sweet romance to preserve." After World War II, both young men had spent one sun-swept week on Long Island, renovating a house and falling in with two Irish sisters--nannies to a wealthy family--"marvelling, marvelling still, that this Eden was here, at the other end of the same island on which they had spent their lives." By the end of their idyll, Billy and Eva were engaged, though she was set to return to County Wicklow. Determined to earn enough money to bring her, her family, and if necessary her entire village back to the US, Billy took two jobs, one of which would indenture him for years. But despite the money he sent, Eva never returned, and then was suddenly dead of pneumonia. The true tragedy is that she had simply kept her fare and married someone else--a secret Dennis keeps for the next 30 years as he watches Billy fall into a loveless marriage and the self-administered anaesthesia of alcohol. Alice McDermott's quiet, striking novel is a study of the lies that bind and the weight of familial wishes. She seems far less interested in the shock of revelation than in her characters' power to live through personal disaster. As Dennis's daughter pieces together Billy's real history, she also learns of the accommodations her own family had long made--and discovers that good intentions can be as destructive as the truth they mean to hide. Amazon.com

GOOD CHARACTERIZATION, 13 Jun 2003
If you like books about children, hop aboard.

In the summer of this year, we are introduced to Theresa, the expert baby-sitter who entertains her cousin Daisy up from Queens Village for the entire summer. Theresa works for the wealthy folk around her area, looking after their toddlers and sometimes walking and taking care of the owners pets.

She is so tender towards her cousin Daisy's, it's totally touching. Meet Flora the toddler who is constantly under her care and whose father is a painter, and quite attracted to Theresa.....the Morans kids of Janey, Judy, June
Tony and Petey and the Kaufmans, the Swansons and the rest of the neighborhood.

The story line was interesting and the characters more so, but it's a book that will keep you turning the pages as you will want to know what happens to these lovely children who spend their days on the beach and who dream about fairies and lollipops on weeping cherry trees.

A good holiday read.

A Great Deal in a Brief Book, 15 Mar 2003
This book is the first from Alice McDermott since, "Charming Billy", won the National Book Award in 1998. A book with that type of success is certain to create very high expectations for the next work, and while, "Child Of My Heart", is very good I think it is unfair to compare it to the writer's previous work. Few authors turn out books that routinely are considered the best by those who decide awards.

The book is a narrative as shared by a woman of her memories of a summer when she was 15. I think this is an important point, for some seem to find this 15 years old girl as lacking credibility. These are memories and they are subject to all the forms of error that define what memory is. There is no doubt the narrator is precocious by any measure, she has an almost Mary Poppins like effect on the children she cares for, and by her account the animals she watches as well. She is an only child, she is clearly very bright, and if she was as mature as her stunning good looks, the memories seemed to me to be credible. Certain of the remembered thoughts may be enhanced or edited, but I do not believe they are made from whole cloth.

She is far from perfect and the one error she does make has consequences. Whether her taking action with her little cousin would have made a difference is unlikely, but the author keeps that to herself. Our narrator may know what she is dealing with and chooses to make the most of the summer as she can, not fighting the inevitable. For this is a confident young woman as becomes apparent in how she portrays MaCduff in her school play, defying her teachers, Nuns, to do as she feels appropriate.

She also has been put in the strange situation of being an only child situated to live amongst those who might help her become more than her parents are. She lives on a portion of Long Island that is not fashionable but gives her access to the people and the homes they occupy to network, and be exposed to them, whether she pursues it or not.

My main criticism is that there is too much in too short a book. Extremely complex relationships are touched on as opposed to explored. This may have been intentional as memories are never as complete as the real time event, but again that is a detail only the author knows. I very much enjoy the manner by which Alice McDermott writes, and for me that is always a great part of any book. All of the issues and situations may not have been completed for the reader, but that hardly makes the book unique. The book is definitely a worthwhile read from a talented author.

Potential but needed more development, 30 Jul 1999
This book had such potential, but the characters were so static and did not develop or mature in any way throughout the novel. I was very disappointed in the protagonist's unemotional responses to emotional situations and subjects. McDermott does have a beautiful style of writing, but she did not take these characters to the level that she could have. The ending was anti-climatic and frustrating.

Puh-leeaze!, 11 Jun 1999
I must say that this is the first time I'm angry at myself for taking money out of my pocket to put it in someone else's. What a waste of my precious dollars and time. There was nothing appealing about this book--not the plot, the style nor the characters. Thumbs down.

Enough already!, 27 May 1999
I am so sick of this character. How many - single women in their 20's who live on their own in a big city with powerful careers and no life outside of it, who are independent enough to have sex and not care, yet can't focus on anything else except sex and love - do I have to read about? I was this woman for a good number of years, but I had a lot more going on in my life. Please - SOMEBODY give these characters some dimension.

Irritating, 26 May 1999
At first I loved this story of an editor at a vanity publishing house as she wends her way through the deceptive and demeaning relationships with her authors, and specifically with one, who quickly (and foolishly, in my opinion) becomes her lover. But I soon became impatient with the characters and endless obsessing, condescension and duplicity. Despite her good writing style, McDermott's novels leave me with an unpleasant taste for her characters..

A woman's view of men and love, 04 Mar 1999
A wonderful examination of male-female relationships. The book is funny, it is insightful, it is a revelation to me, a a man. I suspected, but was not clued in to the workings of the female mind. The author ( as in Charming Billy ) is fascinated with the concept of obsessive love. And posits that we have the capacity to love many in a lifetime; star crossed lovers are fine for Romeo and Juliette, but not in the real world. She sees the choices and tradeoffs which we face,and presents them in a most thoughtful and engaging way.

I really liked this book. More than her later, "Charming Billy".

She is a talented writer.

Wonderful, bittersweet book, 17 Jul 2008
I enjoyed Charming Billy because it is sweet and nostalgic. It is a sensitive book in which feelings play the major part. Its best scenes take place on Long Island, just after the war, when Billy and his cousin meet the Irish girls who will transform their lives. The descriptions are atmospheric, the action slow-paced, the situations understated.

This book is like a rose whose petals are plucked one by one. It begins with Billy's funeral. Piece by piece, it tells the chain of events that has led to his death, from the fateful encounter with the Irish girl, in his early adulthood. Billy is sentimental. Billy wants to believe not just in love, but that love is what gives meaning to life. Ultimately this only leads to waste, as he is duped by a worthless woman and protected against his own best interests by his well-meaning cousin. Or does it? Was his belief, his sincerity what made Billy charming? Ms McDermott lets us decide.

The book has interesting contrasts between the post-war and depression years, and more recent times. It is set among the Irish-American community. While it is different in style from the darkly sarcastic and humorous Angela's Ashes, there are intriguing comparisons to make between the two, and Charming Billy may be worth reading as a `sequel' to the Irish book.

Charming Billy - an all time favourite, 31 Jul 2006
I truly loved this book and I think it will always be special to me. First time I tried it I could not get into it at all but I persevered and am so glad that I did. I've recommended it to friends and family.
I found it heartbreaking, inspiring, uplifting, moving.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 19 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 01 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

Warm and Wise, 21 Dec 2002
On the afternoon of Billy Lynch's funeral, his family and friends gather at a New York restaurant to discuss this charismatic man whom "everyone loved" and who, apparently, "died of drink." Questions abound: Why would Billy drink himself to death? How unhappy was he in his marriage to the plain-but-faithful Maeve? And what of Eva, his first love? If Billy had managed to have a future with Eva, would his life have taken a different turn? Was Billy's pathetic outcome just a matter of fate?

The narrator of Charming Billy is a cousin-once-removed of the protagonist, the daughter of Billy's best friend, Dennis, and probably the author's alter ego. Although intelligent and perceptive, the narrator is also rather critical of the pride, prejudice, sexism, racism, faith and clannish behavior she observes in her elders.

Charming Billy is a wonderful story of second and third-generation Irish-Americans, most of whom are blood relatives and live and love and laugh and drink and work for Consolidated Edison in the Queens borough of New York City. In the hands of a lesser author, a book such as Charming Billy might be one in which we would soon lose interest, but McDermott, a wonderful writer, brings Billy to life as well as illuminating the lives of this tightly-knit Irish-American community.

The opening scene, in a restaurant following Billy's funeral, is a brilliant social satire reminiscent of James T. Farrell's stories about Irish-Americans in Chicago, Can All This Grandeur Perish, written in 1937. McDermott, however, is less scathing, more sentimental and humorous, than was Farrell.

The characters in Charming Billy are warmly and well-drawn. They all have names like Dennis and Danny and Kevin and Rosemary and Bridie and Maeve. They are patriotic Americans, to be sure, but still proud of their Irish heritage and some of them even speak with a brogue. Part of the value of this warm and wonderful novel lies in the concern and respect with which McDermott treats past and current Irish-American issues.

McDermott writes in prose so masterful that we can almost hear the delightful Irish lilt in the voices of the speakers. There is a beautifully rhythmic cadence that captures the ebb and flow of conversation perfectly and one that never fails to involve the reader on an intensely emotional level. At the post-funeral dinner, Billy's sister takes the pragmatic view that "Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids nor not...Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same." Billy's bachelor friend and drinking partner, Dan Lynch, defends Billy, taking a more romantic view of Billy's life: "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed...But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate."

Why did Billy Lynch's life turn out so miserably? Why did this charming and lovable man "die of drink?" That is the central mystery, the question on which this novel of personal revelation turns. As the narrator tries to make sense of Billy's life, she finds herself also investigating both her father's life and her own as well. As she uncovers first one fact and then another, the mystery of "why" and "why not" only deepens.

It cannot be denied that Billy Lynch was a man seduced by the bar. "A world where love...could be spoken of by a hand on the shoulder, a fresh drink placed on the bar, Good to see you, through welling tears, real ones now, Ah, Billy, it's always good to see you. Dark, sparkling, sprinkled with moments when the sound and smell and sight of the place...transported him, however briefly, to a summer night long ago when he was young and life was all promise."

Any sensitive reader will find Charming Billy a wonderful investigation into the motivations and mysteries of life and love as written by one of the best authors of the twentieth century.

Wonderful, bittersweet book, 17 Jul 2008
I enjoyed Charming Billy because it is sweet and nostalgic. It is a sensitive book in which feelings play the major part. Its best scenes take place on Long Island, just after the war, when Billy and his cousin meet the Irish girls who will transform their lives. The descriptions are atmospheric, the action slow-paced, the situations understated.

This book is like a rose whose petals are plucked one by one. It begins with Billy's funeral. Piece by piece, it tells the chain of events that has led to his death, from the fateful encounter with the Irish girl, in his early adulthood. Billy is sentimental. Billy wants to believe not just in love, but that love is what gives meaning to life. Ultimately this only leads to waste, as he is duped by a worthless woman and protected against his own best interests by his well-meaning cousin. Or does it? Was his belief, his sincerity what made Billy charming? Ms McDermott lets us decide.

The book has interesting contrasts between the post-war and depression years, and more recent times. It is set among the Irish-American community. While it is different in style from the darkly sarcastic and humorous Angela's Ashes, there are intriguing comparisons to make between the two, and Charming Billy may be worth reading as a `sequel' to the Irish book.

Charming Billy - an all time favourite, 31 Jul 2006
I truly loved this book and I think it will always be special to me. First time I tried it I could not get into it at all but I persevered and am so glad that I did. I've recommended it to friends and family.
I found it heartbreaking, inspiring, uplifting, moving.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 19 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 01 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

Warm and Wise, 21 Dec 2002
On the afternoon of Billy Lynch's funeral, his family and friends gather at a New York restaurant to discuss this charismatic man whom "everyone loved" and who, apparently, "died of drink." Questions abound: Why would Billy drink himself to death? How unhappy was he in his marriage to the plain-but-faithful Maeve? And what of Eva, his first love? If Billy had managed to have a future with Eva, would his life have taken a different turn? Was Billy's pathetic outcome just a matter of fate?

The narrator of Charming Billy is a cousin-once-removed of the protagonist, the daughter of Billy's best friend, Dennis, and probably the author's alter ego. Although intelligent and perceptive, the narrator is also rather critical of the pride, prejudice, sexism, racism, faith and clannish behavior she observes in her elders.

Charming Billy is a wonderful story of second and third-generation Irish-Americans, most of whom are blood relatives and live and love and laugh and drink and work for Consolidated Edison in the Queens borough of New York City. In the hands of a lesser author, a book such as Charming Billy might be one in which we would soon lose interest, but McDermott, a wonderful writer, brings Billy to life as well as illuminating the lives of this tightly-knit Irish-American community.

The opening scene, in a restaurant following Billy's funeral, is a brilliant social satire reminiscent of James T. Farrell's stories about Irish-Americans in Chicago, Can All This Grandeur Perish, written in 1937. McDermott, however, is less scathing, more sentimental and humorous, than was Farrell.

The characters in Charming Billy are warmly and well-drawn. They all have names like Dennis and Danny and Kevin and Rosemary and Bridie and Maeve. They are patriotic Americans, to be sure, but still proud of their Irish heritage and some of them even speak with a brogue. Part of the value of this warm and wonderful novel lies in the concern and respect with which McDermott treats past and current Irish-American issues.

McDermott writes in prose so masterful that we can almost hear the delightful Irish lilt in the voices of the speakers. There is a beautifully rhythmic cadence that captures the ebb and flow of conversation perfectly and one that never fails to involve the reader on an intensely emotional level. At the post-funeral dinner, Billy's sister takes the pragmatic view that "Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids nor not...Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same." Billy's bachelor friend and drinking partner, Dan Lynch, defends Billy, taking a more romantic view of Billy's life: "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed...But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate."

Why did Billy Lynch's life turn out so miserably? Why did this charming and lovable man "die of drink?" That is the central mystery, the question on which this novel of personal revelation turns. As the narrator tries to make sense of Billy's life, she finds herself also investigating both her father's life and her own as well. As she uncovers first one fact and then another, the mystery of "why" and "why not" only deepens.

It cannot be denied that Billy Lynch was a man seduced by the bar. "A world where love...could be spoken of by a hand on the shoulder, a fresh drink placed on the bar, Good to see you, through welling tears, real ones now, Ah, Billy, it's always good to see you. Dark, sparkling, sprinkled with moments when the sound and smell and sight of the place...transported him, however briefly, to a summer night long ago when he was young and life was all promise."

Any sensitive reader will find Charming Billy a wonderful investigation into the motivations and mysteries of life and love as written by one of the best authors of the twentieth century.

GOOD CHARACTERIZATION, 13 Jun 2003
If you like books about children, hop aboard.

In the summer of this year, we are introduced to Theresa, the expert baby-sitter who entertains her cousin Daisy up from Queens Village for the entire summer. Theresa works for the wealthy folk around her area, looking after their toddlers and sometimes walking and taking care of the owners pets.

She is so tender towards her cousin Daisy's, it's totally touching. Meet Flora the toddler who is constantly under her care and whose father is a painter, and quite attracted to Theresa.....the Morans kids of Janey, Judy, June
Tony and Petey and the Kaufmans, the Swansons and the rest of the neighborhood.

The story line was interesting and the characters more so, but it's a book that will keep you turning the pages as you will want to know what happens to these lovely children who spend their days on the beach and who dream about fairies and lollipops on weeping cherry trees.

A good holiday read.

A Great Deal in a Brief Book, 15 Mar 2003
This book is the first from Alice McDermott since, "Charming Billy", won the National Book Award in 1998. A book with that type of success is certain to create very high expectations for the next work, and while, "Child Of My Heart", is very good I think it is unfair to compare it to the writer's previous work. Few authors turn out books that routinely are considered the best by those who decide awards.

The book is a narrative as shared by a woman of her memories of a summer when she was 15. I think this is an important point, for some seem to find this 15 years old girl as lacking credibility. These are memories and they are subject to all the forms of error that define what memory is. There is no doubt the narrator is precocious by any measure, she has an almost Mary Poppins like effect on the children she cares for, and by her account the animals she watches as well. She is an only child, she is clearly very bright, and if she was as mature as her stunning good looks, the memories seemed to me to be credible. Certain of the remembered thoughts may be enhanced or edited, but I do not believe they are made from whole cloth.

She is far from perfect and the one error she does make has consequences. Whether her taking action with her little cousin would have made a difference is unlikely, but the author keeps that to herself. Our narrator may know what she is dealing with and chooses to make the most of the summer as she can, not fighting the inevitable. For this is a confident young woman as becomes apparent in how she portrays MaCduff in her school play, defying her teachers, Nuns, to do as she feels appropriate.

She also has been put in the strange situation of being an only child situated to live amongst those who might help her become more than her parents are. She lives on a portion of Long Island that is not fashionable but gives her access to the people and the homes they occupy to network, and be exposed to them, whether she pursues it or not.

My main criticism is that there is too much in too short a book. Extremely complex relationships are touched on as opposed to explored. This may have been intentional as memories are never as complete as the real time event, but again that is a detail only the author knows. I very much enjoy the manner by which Alice McDermott writes, and for me that is always a great part of any book. All of the issues and situations may not have been completed for the reader, but that hardly makes the book unique. The book is definitely a worthwhile read from a talented author.

Potential but needed more development, 30 Jul 1999
This book had such potential, but the characters were so static and did not develop or mature in any way throughout the novel. I was very disappointed in the protagonist's unemotional responses to emotional situations and subjects. McDermott does have a beautiful style of writing, but she did not take these characters to the level that she could have. The ending was anti-climatic and frustrating.

Puh-leeaze!, 11 Jun 1999
I must say that this is the first time I'm angry at myself for taking money out of my pocket to put it in someone else's. What a waste of my precious dollars and time. There was nothing appealing about this book--not the plot, the style nor the characters. Thumbs down.

Enough already!, 27 May 1999
I am so sick of this character. How many - single women in their 20's who live on their own in a big city with powerful careers and no life outside of it, who are independent enough to have sex and not care, yet can't focus on anything else except sex and love - do I have to read about? I was this woman for a good number of years, but I had a lot more going on in my life. Please - SOMEBODY give these characters some dimension.

Irritating, 26 May 1999
At first I loved this story of an editor at a vanity publishing house as she wends her way through the deceptive and demeaning relationships with her authors, and specifically with one, who quickly (and foolishly, in my opinion) becomes her lover. But I soon became impatient with the characters and endless obsessing, condescension and duplicity. Despite her good writing style, McDermott's novels leave me with an unpleasant taste for her characters..

A woman's view of men and love, 04 Mar 1999
A wonderful examination of male-female relationships. The book is funny, it is insightful, it is a revelation to me, a a man. I suspected, but was not clued in to the workings of the female mind. The author ( as in Charming Billy ) is fascinated with the concept of obsessive love. And posits that we have the capacity to love many in a lifetime; star crossed lovers are fine for Romeo and Juliette, but not in the real world. She sees the choices and tradeoffs which we face,and presents them in a most thoughtful and engaging way.

I really liked this book. More than her later, "Charming Billy".

She is a talented writer.

Wonderful, bittersweet book, 17 Jul 2008
I enjoyed Charming Billy because it is sweet and nostalgic. It is a sensitive book in which feelings play the major part. Its best scenes take place on Long Island, just after the war, when Billy and his cousin meet the Irish girls who will transform their lives. The descriptions are atmospheric, the action slow-paced, the situations understated.

This book is like a rose whose petals are plucked one by one. It begins with Billy's funeral. Piece by piece, it tells the chain of events that has led to his death, from the fateful encounter with the Irish girl, in his early adulthood. Billy is sentimental. Billy wants to believe not just in love, but that love is what gives meaning to life. Ultimately this only leads to waste, as he is duped by a worthless woman and protected against his own best interests by his well-meaning cousin. Or does it? Was his belief, his sincerity what made Billy charming? Ms McDermott lets us decide.

The book has interesting contrasts between the post-war and depression years, and more recent times. It is set among the Irish-American community. While it is different in style from the darkly sarcastic and humorous Angela's Ashes, there are intriguing comparisons to make between the two, and Charming Billy may be worth reading as a `sequel' to the Irish book.

Charming Billy - an all time favourite, 31 Jul 2006
I truly loved this book and I think it will always be special to me. First time I tried it I could not get into it at all but I persevered and am so glad that I did. I've recommended it to friends and family.
I found it heartbreaking, inspiring, uplifting, moving.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 19 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 01 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

Warm and Wise, 21 Dec 2002
On the afternoon of Billy Lynch's funeral, his family and friends gather at a New York restaurant to discuss this charismatic man whom "everyone loved" and who, apparently, "died of drink." Questions abound: Why would Billy drink himself to death? How unhappy was he in his marriage to the plain-but-faithful Maeve? And what of Eva, his first love? If Billy had managed to have a future with Eva, would his life have taken a different turn? Was Billy's pathetic outcome just a matter of fate?

The narrator of Charming Billy is a cousin-once-removed of the protagonist, the daughter of Billy's best friend, Dennis, and probably the author's alter ego. Although intelligent and perceptive, the narrator is also rather critical of the pride, prejudice, sexism, racism, faith and clannish behavior she observes in her elders.

Charming Billy is a wonderful story of second and third-generation Irish-Americans, most of whom are blood relatives and live and love and laugh and drink and work for Consolidated Edison in the Queens borough of New York City. In the hands of a lesser author, a book such as Charming Billy might be one in which we would soon lose interest, but McDermott, a wonderful writer, brings Billy to life as well as illuminating the lives of this tightly-knit Irish-American community.

The opening scene, in a restaurant following Billy's funeral, is a brilliant social satire reminiscent of James T. Farrell's stories about Irish-Americans in Chicago, Can All This Grandeur Perish, written in 1937. McDermott, however, is less scathing, more sentimental and humorous, than was Farrell.

The characters in Charming Billy are warmly and well-drawn. They all have names like Dennis and Danny and Kevin and Rosemary and Bridie and Maeve. They are patriotic Americans, to be sure, but still proud of their Irish heritage and some of them even speak with a brogue. Part of the value of this warm and wonderful novel lies in the concern and respect with which McDermott treats past and current Irish-American issues.

McDermott writes in prose so masterful that we can almost hear the delightful Irish lilt in the voices of the speakers. There is a beautifully rhythmic cadence that captures the ebb and flow of conversation perfectly and one that never fails to involve the reader on an intensely emotional level. At the post-funeral dinner, Billy's sister takes the pragmatic view that "Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids nor not...Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same." Billy's bachelor friend and drinking partner, Dan Lynch, defends Billy, taking a more romantic view of Billy's life: "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed...But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate."

Why did Billy Lynch's life turn out so miserably? Why did this charming and lovable man "die of drink?" That is the central mystery, the question on which this novel of personal revelation turns. As the narrator tries to make sense of Billy's life, she finds herself also investigating both her father's life and her own as well. As she uncovers first one fact and then another, the mystery of "why" and "why not" only deepens.

It cannot be denied that Billy Lynch was a man seduced by the bar. "A world where love...could be spoken of by a hand on the shoulder, a fresh drink placed on the bar, Good to see you, through welling tears, real ones now, Ah, Billy, it's always good to see you. Dark, sparkling, sprinkled with moments when the sound and smell and sight of the place...transported him, however briefly, to a summer night long ago when he was young and life was all promise."

Any sensitive reader will find Charming Billy a wonderful investigation into the motivations and mysteries of life and love as written by one of the best authors of the twentieth century.

Wonderful, bittersweet book, 17 Jul 2008
I enjoyed Charming Billy because it is sweet and nostalgic. It is a sensitive book in which feelings play the major part. Its best scenes take place on Long Island, just after the war, when Billy and his cousin meet the Irish girls who will transform their lives. The descriptions are atmospheric, the action slow-paced, the situations understated.

This book is like a rose whose petals are plucked one by one. It begins with Billy's funeral. Piece by piece, it tells the chain of events that has led to his death, from the fateful encounter with the Irish girl, in his early adulthood. Billy is sentimental. Billy wants to believe not just in love, but that love is what gives meaning to life. Ultimately this only leads to waste, as he is duped by a worthless woman and protected against his own best interests by his well-meaning cousin. Or does it? Was his belief, his sincerity what made Billy charming? Ms McDermott lets us decide.

The book has interesting contrasts between the post-war and depression years, and more recent times. It is set among the Irish-American community. While it is different in style from the darkly sarcastic and humorous Angela's Ashes, there are intriguing comparisons to make between the two, and Charming Billy may be worth reading as a `sequel' to the Irish book.

Charming Billy - an all time favourite, 31 Jul 2006
I truly loved this book and I think it will always be special to me. First time I tried it I could not get into it at all but I persevered and am so glad that I did. I've recommended it to friends and family.
I found it heartbreaking, inspiring, uplifting, moving.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 19 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

NOT SO CHARMING BILLY..., 01 Jan 2003
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

Warm and Wise, 21 Dec 2002
On the afternoon of Billy Lynch's funeral, his family and friends gather at a New York restaurant to discuss this charismatic man whom "everyone loved" and who, apparently, "died of drink." Questions abound: Why would Billy drink himself to death? How unhappy was he in his marriage to the plain-but-faithful Maeve? And what of Eva, his first love? If Billy had managed to have a future with Eva, would his life have taken a different turn? Was Billy's pathetic outcome just a matter of fate?

The narrator of Charming Billy is a cousin-once-removed of the protagonist, the daughter of Billy's best friend, Dennis, and probably the author's alter ego. Although intelligent and perceptive, the narrator is also rather critical of the pride, prejudice, sexism, racism, faith and clannish behavior she observes in her elders.

Charming Billy is a wonderful story of second and third-generation Irish-Americans, most of whom are blood relatives and live and love and laugh and drink and work for Consolidated Edison in the Queens borough of New York City. In the hands of a lesser author, a book such as Charming Billy might be one in which we would soon lose interest, but McDermott, a wonderful writer, brings Billy to life as well as illuminating the lives of this tightly-knit Irish-American community.

The opening scene, in a restaurant following Billy's funeral, is a brilliant social satire reminiscent of James T. Farrell's stories about Irish-Americans in Chicago, Can All This Grandeur Perish, written in 1937. McDermott, however, is less scathing, more sentimental and humorous, than was Farrell.

The characters in Charming Billy are warmly and well-drawn. They all have names like Dennis and Danny and Kevin and Rosemary and Bridie and Maeve. They are patriotic Americans, to be sure, but still proud of their Irish heritage and some of them even speak with a brogue. Part of the value of this warm and wonderful novel lies in the concern and respect with which McDermott treats past and current Irish-American issues.

McDermott writes in prose so masterful that we can almost hear the delightful Irish lilt in the voices of the speakers. There is a beautifully rhythmic cadence that captures the ebb and flow of conversation perfectly and one that never fails to involve the reader on an intensely emotional level. At the post-funeral dinner, Billy's sister takes the pragmatic view that "Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids nor not...Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same." Billy's bachelor friend and drinking partner, Dan Lynch, defends Billy, taking a more romantic view of Billy's life: "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed...But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate."

Why did Billy Lynch's life turn out so miserably? Why did this charming and lovable man "die of drink?" That is the central mystery, the question on which this novel of personal revelation turns. As the narrator tries to make sense of Billy's life, she finds herself also investigating both her father's life and her own as well. As she uncovers first one fact and then another, the mystery of "why" and "why not" only deepens.

It cannot be denied that Billy Lynch was a man seduced by the bar. "A world where love...could be spoken of by a hand on the shoulder, a fresh drink placed on the bar, Good to see you, through welling tears, real ones now, Ah, Billy, it's always good to see you. Dark, sparkling, sprinkled with moments when the sound and smell and sight of the place...transported him, however briefly, to a summer night long ago when he was young and life was all promise."

Any sensitive reader will find Charming Billy a wonderful investigation into the motivations and mysteries of life and love as written by one of the best authors of the twentieth century.

GOOD CHARACTERIZATION, 13 Jun 2003
If you like books about children, hop aboard.

In the summer of this year, we are introduced to Theresa, the expert baby-sitter who entertains her cousin Daisy up from Queens Village for the entire summer. Theresa works for the wealthy folk around her area, looking after their toddlers and sometimes walking and taking care of the owners pets.

She is so tender towards her cousin Daisy's, it's totally touching. Meet Flora the toddler who is constantly under her care and whose father is a painter, and quite attracted to Theresa.....the Morans kids of Janey, Judy, June
Tony and Petey and the Kaufmans, the Swansons and the rest of the neighborhood.

The story line was interesting and the characters more so, but it's a book that will keep you turning the pages as you will want to know what happens to these lovely children who spend their days on the beach and who dream about fairies and lollipops on weeping cherry trees.

A good holiday read.

A Great Deal in a Brief Book, 15 Mar 2003
This book is the first from Alice McDermott since, "Charming Billy", won the National Book Award in 1998. A book with that type of success is certain to create very high expectations for the next work, and while, "Child Of My Heart", is very good I think it is unfair to compare it to the writer's previous work. Few authors turn out books that routinely are considered the best by those who decide awards.

The book is a narrative as shared by a woman of her memories of a summer when she was 15. I think this is an important point, for some seem to find this 15 years old girl as lacking credibility. These are memories and they are subject to all the forms of error that define what memory is. There is no doubt the narrator is precocious by any measure, she has an almost Mary Poppins like effect on the children she cares for, and by her account the animals she watches as well. She is an only child, she is clearly very bright, and if she was as mature as her stunning good looks, the memories seemed to me to be credible. Certain of the remembered thoughts may be enhanced or edited, but I do not believe they are made from whole cloth.

She is far from perfect and the one error she does make has consequences. Whether her taking action with her little cousin would have made a difference is unlikely, but the author keeps that to herself. Our narrator may know what she is dealing with and chooses to make the most of the summer as she can, not fighting the inevitable. For this is a confident young woman as becomes apparent in how she portrays MaCduff in her school play, defying her teachers, Nuns, to do as she feels appropriate.

She also has been put in the strange situation of being an only child situated to live amongst those who might help her become more than her parents are. She lives on a portion of Long Island that is not fashionable but gives her access to the people and the homes they occupy to network, and be exposed to them, whether she pursues it or not.

My main criticism is that there is too much in too short a book. Extremely complex relationships are touched on as opposed to explored. This may have been intentional as memories are never as complete as the real time event, but again that is a detail only the author knows. I very much enjoy the manner by which Alice McDermott writes, and for me that is always a great part of any book. All of the issues and situations may not have been completed for the reader, but that hardly makes the book unique. The book is definitely a worthwhile read from a talented author.