Charming Billy

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Summary: told from the inner minds of the Irish, in their words.
Review: A sheer but troubling delight!! I felt transported back to ny Brooklyn roots, hearing again the self-serving lies we all convinced ourselves were needed to survive. We accepted the lies of others so they would accept ours. The omnipresent alcohol pervaded every moment of our lives even during the short episodes of 'dryness'. Best of all, told in the Irish argot. Forget Hamill's 'A Drinking Life' - this is the Irish Manifesto!!

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Summary: A totally enchanting novel of enduring love!
Review: Charming Billy is a remarkable book that is worth everyone's time to sit and read. It portrays Irish-Catholic culture in a way that will not be forgotten. I read the novel before it became a National Book Award winner and I had a feeling it was destined for acclaim.

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Summary: Magical,from the first line to last,unable to stop
Review: Haunting, moving, startling,totally transporting, pure pleasure...and full of wit, grace, wisdom. You want to go from the last line straight back to the beginning many times over.And each new reading makes many new discoveries.

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Summary: Well written but not compelling
Review: Alice McDermott is a fine writer but I'm not sure she deserved an award for this particular book. I was not pulled into the narrative until about two-thirds of the way through. And I, too, found it hard to keep track of the characters. A major relationship is not revealed until halfway through the book. I didn't realize whom the narrator was addressing until near the end. The fact that the book isn't always narrated by the narrator doesn't help. Definitely worth reading but not entirely satisfying.

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Summary: Just like Harry Chapin's "Taxi"!
Review: No characterization. Who is Eva? and what makes him carry the torch for her all his life? We know that Billy is a pleasant drunk, and that's all we know about any character in this book. Billy drank himself to death. Near the end we find out a secret. Before that is 200 pages of obvious--why am I reading this?--filler. I'm NY Irish myself, but was frustrated by the paucity of culturalisms I could relate to. Notice not many reviews for this book? Speaks for itself; most people without anything nice to say don't say anything at all. I see why they call this an "upset winner" of the book award. It is on the slight, trite side

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Summary: Unusual narrative style; understated love story
Review: McDermott writes with a different style in Charming Billy, so that at times I found it difficult to follow who is narrating the story and how that person got their perspective. It is a good perspective, and the entire story is pleasantly understated. It lacks high drama, as most of our lives actually do, and thus portrays an unfortunate love story (or more accurately the results of an unfortunate love) in a natural,low-key, even contemplative manner. It is the result of unwisely loving -- in this case the anti-hero Billy loves too much or too blindly or too optimistically -- that is explained in the novel. Billy's life story is not given in detail, but the effect of his drinking and despair as it touches other's lives is what we witness through the tale. There is sadness here, as well as hope; humor and pain; honesty, deceit, compassion, regret ... oh, it is very much like real life. I found it difficult to put down, because the book itself seemed to beckon me right back into its pages (I finally gave up and just read it through to the end). Something about it is compelling, although the plot itself is so tame that I could not explain the irresistability of the story. The only problem I found was that the author tends to be repetitive, citing information and then coming up with a scene about it several pages later. Otherwise, it is worth the read merely to enjoy the unusual narrative style and how the story of a life and the lives affected by it evolves. For all his sorrows and his drinking, you may come away, as I did, charmed by the anti-hero in Charming Billy.

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Summary: "Billy" isn't charming, but McDermott's book is.
Review: The charm of Charming Billy, the title character of Alice McDermott's fourth novel, is a little hard to see. He drinks too much, causing his wife many sleepless nights. His best friend gets hauled out of bed at 3 a.m. to help collect Billy from wherever he's fallen into a drunken stupor. Billy's life was damaged by a girl who, he believes, died before they could get married. However, the truth is that the girl went home to Ireland, stole Billy's money to buy a gas station, and married somebody else. Billy's best friend has kept this secret for twenty years. That's the premise of this remarkable tale, which is told in flashback beginning at Billy's wake in a compelling fashion that makes the reader want to understand more about Billy and the people who are part of his life. Billy feels sorry for himself, but he also puts on a charming Irish air. Part of an extensive Irish-American community on Long Island, Billy somehow brings out the best in people, who sympathize with his plight - almost everyone believes that his beloved is dead - and so protect him from the world as he slowly drinks himself to death. The stereotype of the drunken Irish is an old one, and it's handled here extremely well, centering not so much on Billy, but on the people around him, and the effect of Billy's drinking on them. Billy goes to Ireland to make a retreat for alcoholics - a trip with a mission, to give up the drink. On that trip, he goes to visit the grave of his lost love. "He foresaw a grassy plot and a granite stone engraved with her name, and the dates, the last not merely marking the end of her life but the end of his youth and that glorious and astounding possibility that he had once inhabited. He foresaw his own pale fingers, which trembled anyway, tracing the carved numbers and words." Instead, he finds her behind the counter at the gas station. "Her hair had been lightened to a honey blond and no longer matched her dark eyes, although the eyes themselves had stayed true. Her skin was rough and lined, a new downward turn to her lips, a second chin. She was back from the dead for him, there was that, but there was also half a lifetime of mistaken belief.... It wasn't only her being alive that took some getting used to, it was that she had lived, it was how she had lived." And so the pledge of sobriety was short-lived. "Even Father Jim might excuse him, pledge or no, if he knew what he'd been through this afternoon. If he could begin to appreciate this soaking sense of foolishness." It was a hard life for Charming Billy, but harder still for those around him. If there are alcoholics in your family, you'll find this a hard book to read, but somehow all the more important for its perspective. Charming Billy is beautifully written and elegantly crafted, and well worth your time.

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Summary: More Than a Good Story
Review: There are many craftsmen who can illustrate ordinary lives with charm and grace. McDermott adds an empathy and understanding which can force a reader to reconsider one's family and friendship - and not always comfortably. Charming Billy could be more 'charming' but not without losing something of Billy and a few other characters - and their kindred spirits who inhabit our lives.

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Summary: The book is as charming as Billy.
Review: Alice McDermott captures life marvelously as she uses dialog and description to depict the life of a very troubled man. But he was nevertheless a man of faith and conviction. The many characters simply showed life in an extended Irish family.The ending with "lives of the saints" is perfect.

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Summary: fine book, BUT
Review: I liked this book. Wonderful unhackneyed prose, touching and lugubrious tone, BUT I found it difficult to keep track of the numerous characters. Why don't authors include a cast of characters up front the way playwrights often do and a map to orient us to the locale??