At Weddings and Wakes - Softcover

McDermott, Alice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385319851 ISBN 13: 9780385319850

Publisher: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1998

Synopsis

Twice a week, Lucy Dailey leaves suburbia with her three children in tow, returning to the Brooklyn home where she grew up and where her stepmother and unmarried sisters still live. Aunt Veronica, with her wounded face and dreams of beauty, drowns her sorrows in drink. Aunt Agnes, an acerbic student of elegance, sips only from the finest crystal as she sees Aunt May, the ex-nun, blossom with a late and unexpected love. And all the while, the children watch, absorbing the legacy of their haunted family.

At once a moving evocation of life’s inexplicable calamities and a magical celebration of childhood and familial love, At Weddings and Wakes is the story of three generations of an Irish-American family through the eyes of its youngest members. With eloquence and grace, master storyteller Alice McDermott transforms everyday experience into the heroic and universal.

About this title

Review:

Telling a story through the eyes of children is a tricky business, which is that much more proof of what a magician Alice McDermott happens to be. At Weddings and Wakes, her engrossing portrayal of love and tragedy in an Irish-Catholic family, takes us along with the kids as they accompany their mother on weekly visits to a world of memory and recrimination in the family's old Brooklyn neighborhood. An exquisitely executed little novel that masks all its hard work and complex structure behind finely wrought lace curtains of craft.

From the Publisher:

"A haunted, troubled, beautifully articulated journey into the past."--San Francisco Chronicle.

Sipping effortlessly between past and present, between memory and observation, At Weddings And Wakes tells the story of three generations of an Irish-Catholic family through the eyes of its younger members.

"It's hard to lift your eyes at the end of the book... you'll find yourself reading every word of Alice McDermott's new novel, not because it's complicated but because such wonderful things happen deep inside the senteces."--Newsweek.

At once a haunting evocation of life's inexplicable calamities and a magical celebration of childhood and familial love, At Weddings And Wakes transforms every experience into the heroic and the universal. It is a testament to the remarkable gift of a literary master writing at the peak of her story telling powers.

"A brilliant, highly complex, extraordinary piece of fiction and a triumph for its author."--Chicago Tribune.

"A haunting and masterly work of literary art."--The Wall Street Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Delta Trade Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0385319851
• ISBN 13: 9780385319850
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 213