In 1998, I was a stereotype myself: I’d made a losing bet on a Hollywood career. He’s a stereotype, but only in the sense that everyone is a stereotype. He’s fond of a story, knows a bit of poetry, and rarely looks askance at the offer of a drink. (It won the National Book Award.) Every Irish family has an uncle or a cousin or a brother or a son like Billy. Readers and reviewers were captivated by its note-perfect rendering of a New York Irish-American clan dealing with the not-entirely unexpected death of the alcoholic and adored Billy Lynch. I picked up Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy again after all these years because I was in the mood for something good, and I knew it would be good, because it was good the first time I read it-and the second.īrooklyn-born McDermott published Charming Billy in 1998. If the fiction itch flares, I’d rather scratch it by dipping back into something I’ve already read. I’ve been let down too many times-especially by modern writers-to take a chance on a novel, even one that comes recommended by a friend or critic whose opinion I trust.
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