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Overview
Overview
An ordinary life-its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion-lived by an ordinary, but unforgettable woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott's extraordinary New York Times bestselling novel.
We first glimpse Marie Commeford as a child: a girl in thick glasses observing her pre-Depression world from a Brooklyn stoop. Through her first heartbreak and eventual marriage; her delicate brother's brief stint as a Catholic priest and his emotional breakdown; her career as a funeral director's "consoling angel"; the deaths of her parents and the births of her children-we follow Marie through the changing world of the twentieth century and her Irish-American enclave. Rendered with remarkable empathy and insight, Someone is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived, with passion and heartbreak, a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: McDermott, Alice
- ISBN: 9781250055361
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 8.20 x 0.70
- Number Of Pages: 232
- Publication Year: 2014
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Poignancy transforms an ordinary life into an extraordinary reading experience.
Elizabeth S. - 7 years 7 months agoLeaping back and forth in time, McDermott knits together Marie Commeford's life as an Irish-American living in mid-century New York. Remarkably, Marie's story, which spans seventy years, is distilled to just over 200 pages; not a single word is wasted in this book. The story is told in brief snippets from Marie's childhood, first job, love, marriage, childbirth. It culminates with Marie's experience aging. Outwardly, Marie's life is quite ordinary. Many of the details are mundane, everyday. But in conjuring up an otherwise unremarkable woman, McDermott reveals staggering depth and complexity in Marie's life. There's a particularly poignant scene almost halfway through the novel when Marie asks her brother, "Who's going to love me?" Marie's brother responds "Someone . . . Someone will." In McDermott's graceful spotlight, you might just end up being that someone. You love Marie for the richness of her experience, and for the tenderness of her perspective. And even though Marie's story isn't a page-turner, this quiet gem of a book packs a powerful emotional punch.
HPB Staff Review