- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback (Jan 12 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 038533334X
- ISBN-13: 978-0385333344
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.2 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (272 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #889,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
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
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
From Library Journal
When Billy, the glue of a tight Irish community in New York, dies as a result of lifelong alcohol abuse, mourners gather around roast beef and green bean amandine to tell tales and ruminate on his struggle for happiness after he lost his first love, Eva. With carefully drawn character studies and gentle probing, McDermott, who won the National Book Award for this work, masterfully weaves a subtle but tenacious web of relationships to explore the devastation of alcoholism, the loss of innocence, the daily practice of love, and the redeeming unity of family and friendship.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
You will enjoy it,
By A Customer
Ce commentaire est de: Charming Billy (Hardcover)
You will enjoy this book - McDermott's writing is very unique and very refreshing from the ordinary. For something different, read here.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not-So-Charming,
By
Ce commentaire est de: Charming Billy (Paperback)
McDermott is a skillful writer and weaves thoughtful plots with substance. However, Charming Billy seems to create a massive void between reader and character(s)...there was such distance between me and the story...I did not quite believe the caricature snapshots of how wonderfully charming Billy was...after all, he was drunk most of the time. AFter 30 years of drinking and allowing alcohol to become the most hotly pursued thing in one's life, I think the charm has probably worn off a bit(at least in the real world). I enjoyed the Irish Catholic humor, the narration for the most part, and the ironies. But just when I got a bit comfortable and enjoyed getting to know a character, McDermott switched voices, characters, and created a frustrating read.I gave it 3 stars for the authentic effort, and McDermott's play on words. For the most part, it just "didn't work."
2.0 out of 5 stars
lacking charm and construction,
By Cinnamon Girl "bonchocolat" (Winnetka, IL USA) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Charming Billy (Paperback)
The first chapter of this book has the quiet charm and colorful charactors one would expect, but it quickly devolves into a confused meander through side stories, secondary charactors and long passages (pages and chapters) of people sitting and telling the story to someone else - at a wake, a bar, etc, creating a distance between the reader and a flattening of any plot tension. This is heightened by the undefined narrator/lens figure. Yes, she is the daughter of Billy's good friend, but beyond being there as a witness to the conversations and reminiscences, she plays no narrative role, has no stake in the story, no life outside the story, in short, she is flat. Why McDermott chose this way to construct the story is beyond me - the occaisional interjections of the narrator's first person voice every 30 pages are a disruption that contributes nothing to the story.The main story, of a man who is told by his best friend his fiancee has died, when she (we learn in first chapter) married someone else, could have been interesting, but it is never developed as other charactors' loves and work tales take over. The whole thing feels like listening to someone else's family stories where you don't really know who is who, and after awhile, don't care.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
