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Someone: A Novel - Alice McDermott
Someone: A Novel
by: (author)
3.83 45
A fully realized portrait of one woman’s life in all its complexity, by the National Book Award–winning authorAn ordinary life—its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion—lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott’s... show more
A fully realized portrait of one woman’s life in all its complexity, by the National Book Award–winning authorAn ordinary life—its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion—lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott’s extraordinary return, seven years after the publication of After This. Scattered recollections—of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, old age—come together in this transformative narrative, stitched into a vibrant whole by McDermott’s deft, lyrical voice.     Our first glimpse of Marie is as a child: a girl in glasses waiting on a Brooklyn stoop for her beloved father to come home from work. A seemingly innocuous encounter with a young woman named Pegeen sets the bittersweet tone of this remarkable novel. Pegeen describes herself as an “amadan,” a fool; indeed, soon after her chat with Marie, Pegeen tumbles down her own basement stairs. The magic of McDermott’s novel lies in how it reveals us all as fools for this or that, in one way or another.     Marie’s first heartbreak and her eventual marriage; her brother’s brief stint as a Catholic priest, subsequent loss of faith, and eventual breakdown; the Second World War; her parents’ deaths; the births and lives of Marie’s children; the changing world of her Irish-American enclave in Brooklyn—McDermott sketches all of it with sympathy and insight. This is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived; a crowning achievement by one of the finest American writers at work today.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780374281090 (0374281092)
ASIN: 0374281092
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages no: 240
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
Blondie and Read
Blondie and Read rated it
2.0 Someone: A Novel
this book is really boring. nothing actually happens to our main character. if I didn't have to lead a discussion on it, I wouldn't have finished.
deannahello
deannahello rated it
I was pleasantly surprised by this. It was a very quick excellent read. It was a Co Worker recommend and a loaner so over all in pretty pleased.
Thewanderingjew
Thewanderingjew rated it
5.0 Someone: A Novel
The reader will not want this book to end. It is such a marvelous, easy to read story told through Marie’s memories as she looks back over the years recalling the things that were meaningful in her life. It is told in an uncomplicated, simple, straight-forward way in which all life-cycle events, som...
Thewanderingjew
Thewanderingjew rated it
5.0 Someone: A Novel
The reader will not want this book to end. It is such a marvelous, easy to read story told through Marie’s memories as she looks back over the years recalling the things that were meaningful in her life. It is told in an uncomplicated, simple, straight-forward way in which all life-cycle events, som...
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