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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:Child of My Heartby Alice McDermott
Staff Pick
Book after book, Alice McDermott does more with less. "I'm very conscious of trying to make something epic out of something small and ordinary," says the National Book Award winner. Now she gives us Child of My Heart, a deceptively simple story about one fifteen-year-old girl's summer on the east end of Long Island. Like a lot of poetry, McDermott's fifth novel can defined as well by what it omits as by what it presents. Again, McDermott's subtle mechanics transform a traditional story into a fresh new vision of the world. Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)"This specific, full world, along with McDermott's stringent modesty and moral rigor, allows her to ponder deep contemporary and eternal questions (in her hands they seem to be the same ones) without fuss or bombast....McDermott displays a vibrant romantic hope exactly matched by a realist's awareness of daily devastation." Mona Simpson, Atlantic Monthly (read the entire Atlantic review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In Alice McDermott's first work of fiction since her best-selling, National Book Award-winning Charming Billy, a woman recalls her fifteenth summer with the wry and bittersweet wisdom of hindsight. The beautiful child of older parents, raised on the eastern end of Long Island, Theresa is her town's most sought-after babysitter--cheerful, poised, an effortless storyteller, a wonder with children and animals. Among her charges this fateful summer is Daisy, her younger cousin, who has come to spend a few quiet weeks in this bucolic place. While Theresa copes with the challenge presented by the neighborhood's waiflike children, the tumultuous households of her employers, the attentions of an aging painter, and Daisy's fragility of body and spirit, her precocious, tongue-in-check sense of order is tested as she makes the perilous crossing into adulthood. In her deeply etched rendering of all that happened that seemingly idyllic season, McDermott once again peers into the depths of everyday life with inimitable insight and grace. Review:"There is...something Jamesian about McDermott's style: this novel's craftsmanship and its moral intelligence are as one." The New York Times Book Review Review:"Though hobbled by a tendency toward sentimentality and self-consciousness, McDermott sculpts her small story with a meticulous eye for the telling detail and transcendent metaphor. We know what's coming, but so do the characters — that's part of this tale's bittersweet power." Kirkus Reviews Review:"This is another charmer from McDermott; it's evocative, gently funny and resonant with a sense of impending loss, as all stories of youthful summers must be. There's a whisper of maudlin sentimentality throughout, but Theresa is so likable, and her observations so acute, that one easily forgives it." Publishers Weekly Review:"Just as the calm and sparkling sea can conceal a tricky undertow, McDermott's gorgeous novel is laced with sly literary allusions and provocative insights into the enigma of sexual desire, the mutability of art, death's haunting presence, our need for fantasies, and the endless struggle to keep love pure." Donna Seaman, Booklist Review:"McDermott is a subtle writer, and so while some novelists might fabricate this welter of teenage emotion out of a consummated affair, McDermott does the opposite....We fear for Theresa, and for girls like her — a fear that doesn?t fully dissipate at the conclusion of McDermott's wise, brilliantly observed novel." John Freeman, Minneapolis Star Tribune Review:"McDermott's prose is even and elegant, and the complex character of Theresa offers subtle emotion imbued with haunting prescience." Library Journal Synopsis:McDermott's haunting new work — her first since the bestselling Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award — is narrated by a woman who was born beautiful. On the cusp of 15, her witty, deeply etched evocation of all that was really transpiring under the surface during a seemingly idyllic season gives her wry tale its remarkable vividness and impact. About the AuthorAlice McDermott is the author of four previous novels: Charming Billy, winner of the National Book Award in 1998; At Weddings and Wakes; That Night; and A Bigamists Daughter. She lives with her family outside Washington, D.C. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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