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Since publishing her first novel in 1987, Alice McDermott has become one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the Irish American experience. “Charming Billy,” which won a 1997 National Book Award, focused on Billy Lynch, a great guy — when he was sober. Other books have tackled suicide (“The Ninth Hour”), homosexuality (“Someone”) and, of course, family dysfunction (“At Weddings and Wakes”). Tying them all together is the presence of Roman Catholicism. Still a practicing Catholic despite her very public disagreements with its doctrine, especially regarding women, McDermott approaches religion on the page not as a political lightning rod but as a source of faith and integrity.
Ms. McDermott’s latest novel, Absolution has been hailed by Ann Patchett as a “moral masterpiece.” The story begins in Vietnam in the early 1960s. Absolution is an epistolary novel, framed as a correspondence between an older Patricia and Charlene’s daughter, Rainey, who reaches out to her 60 years after they’ve left Vietnam. It is also a confessional, a search for the absolution in Patricia’s re-evaluation of the past. (the Guardian). It’s a successful and absorbing portrayal of the complicated interior lives of white American women during the Vietnam war, and the reverberation of their time abroad for many years after. (the Guardian)
We are thrilled to have Alice McDermott as our next Celeb! 20 guests are invited.