Charming Billy

Rating:
Summary: Very boring, could not get past first 60 pages.
Review: no one in my book club liked it and most could not finish it. Do not waste your time and money.

Rating:
Summary: At Weddings and Wakes was a better book...
Review: than Charming Billy. But neither is A-list reading; McDermott is not a must-read author. Thank goodness discriminating readers don't rely solely on award-nominees and -winners (or, for that matter, Oprah picks) or we would become the nation of illiterates everyone keeps predicting.

Rating:
Summary: dull story about ordinary people
Review: I looked forward to reading this book because it got the National Book award. What a disappointment! For some reason the author made it difficult to figure out relationships between and among the different characters. That puts an unnecessary burden on the reader. Once again in a work of fiction the Irish are made to look bad. Here the girl who left Billy, never to return, turns out to be a selfish person who keeps the money he sent for her return and uses it for her own purposes. At least this book has a happy ending. But I could not recommend this to anyone who is looking for a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Irish American pathos
Review: A nice read, with familiar (if not stereotyped) characters that evokes sentiment over the fleeting sadness of our lives and the perceptions and deceptions that we carry out with ourselves and our loved ones. Billy himself is a character right out of Carrickfergus - a handsome rover, drunk now and rarely sober, with a fatal, largely illusory lost love darkening his spirit. However, it is hard to accept the basis given for the ruination of a life - or to accept the depth of a character who would render such a superficial judgement. It is hard to make a lasting connection with any of the characters. They seem to have been produced out of familiar molds of a set number (six - to be exact, as the author relates) and not to exist as individuals with their own will outside the predestination of the Irish Catholic order. Worth reading as a casual pickup - certainly not the stuff of a National Book Award. (But then none of the "winners" have been worthy lately -- except McCarthy - and what else was there to choose from this year? Certainly not Wolfe - Wolfe's 'Vanities" being the most over-rated, over-praised book in recent memory).

Rating:
Summary: The author plumbed the depth of the Irish-American Soul.
Review: This book lived up to every expectation I had of it and beyond. I understood this book as if I had lived it myself. The drama of life, Irish-Style. High drama in hushed tones. I think this is the first book I have ever read that I truly wished I had been talented enough to write.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful story.
Review: I have always preferred a good story poorly written over a poor story perfectly written but this is a great story exquisitely written and is pure joy, a gift from the literary Gods, one that should not be missed. If you are a New Yorker, in the true sense of the term, it will strike a cord that you will know from your father, uncle, cousin, grandfather, yourself. A tragedy in the same sense that Willy Loman is tragic. Uplifting in a way that only perfect writing can make it. One of the best.

Rating:
Summary: It's hard to read through tears
Review: A beautiful story that knows how to use the Irish love of words. The "voices" are intricately woven as a Celtic knot. Who ever really knows what's going on inside another person, especially when that person has a problem with the drink? I began the book on a Saturday, and got up early Sunday to finish it, then mailed it off Priority Mail to my niece before my eyes were dry.

Rating:
Summary: A boring read.
Review: Coming from an Irish-American family, I know about lies, living in the past, cover-ups to preserve pride, and wasted lives lived in an atmosphere of make-believe, so the author introduced nothing surprising, profound, or entertaining to me. I found her writing repetitive, character development poor, and description of Long Island where the summer house was unimaginative (I spent many summers of my youth in that area). However, as a resident of Ireland for the past 7 years, I recognize that she does have the Irish dialogue correct (which can also often be about nothing, and therefore sometimes boring). But she misses the humor in the culture which surfaces even (especially?) at wakes. The British film/book "Secrets and Lies" covered the same topics in a more encompassing fashion. One of Amazon's online reviewers says this book is a good read for an intellectual--well, I'm on the cusp of being an intellectual, and I say it's a boring read. Don't waste your money; life is too short to read dull books.

Rating:
Summary: Who's on first?
Review: I don't think I was unusually distracted while reading Charming Billy, but I could not keep the narration straight. I kept flipping back to see who was being described. Especially annoying were the unclear pronoun references. It took me most of the book to separate Billy's mother from Denis's. Also regarding Billy's infatuation with Eva: Another reviewer hit the nail on the head with a Freudian typo. He/she meant to type "Billy barely knew her," but it reads barley. John Barleycorn is indeed the culprit here and I question if an Irishman "in his cups" hasn't been been dealt with a bit too often and in a more satisfactory way by other writers.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting premise uninterestingly explored
Review: The whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking of other writers who could have made this an interesting story. The events, what few there are, unfold in an uninspired way, the character development is non-existent. I stayed with it to the end, thinking the writer had some intention of turning the tables on us or making the story suddenly reverberate with new meaning -- no such luck. It was what it was -- repetitive and dull. The idea, however -- a man who nurses a lost love his entire life only to discover that his loyalty to the dead one has been based on a big lie -- it could have been worth reading. Pity that it wasn't.