This powerful new novel wittily captures the social, political and spiritual upheavals of the mid-twentieth century through the story of a family, and the changing world in which they live. While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution, their older, more tentative brother lags behind, until he finds himself on the way to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Clare, the youngest child of their aging parents, seeks to maintain an almost saintly innocence.
McDermott's highly acclaimed sixth novel, a story of a postwar middle-class family that unfurls over decades, is full of the stuff of everyday life. Her small scenes of acutely observed family interactions gather their potency as the book develops, though they rarely seem eventful in themselves. Martha Plimpton expertly handles McDermott's habit of providing unhurried detail. As a reader, Plimpton is both energetic and precise--important qualities given McDermott's intricate use of sentences that unspool their meaning phrase by phrase. Elegant and formal when McDermott's writing is elegiac, dense, and echoing with internal rhymes, Plimpton is equally at ease creating voices inflected with New York accents, and she delivers perfect pacing when the writing turns quick with dialogue. Listeners will delight in this production. J.C.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
Alice McDermott is the author of five previous novels, including Child of My Heart; Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award; and At Weddings and Wakes, all published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. She lives with her family outside of Washington D.C.
