Alice McDermott Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Mondo Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Alice McDermott is an award winning author from New York, United States, who likes to write literature & fiction books. She is known to have written a number of bestselling books in her career. For one of her books, Charming Billy, Alice was awarded with the National Book Award and the American Book Award. In addition to being a renowned author, she is also a famous university professor and is employed at the University of John Hopkins. Alice is a Professor of Humanities. Author Alice was born on June 27, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York. She finished her school education from the St Boniface School, located in Elmont, Long Island in 1967. Later, she attended the Sacred Heart Academy, located in Hempstead in 1971. Author Alice obtained her Bachelor Arts degree from the New York State University at Oswego in 1975. Following this, she enrolled herself at the New Hampshire University and obtained her Master of Arts degree in 1978. Immediately after graduating from New Hampshire University, author Alic began teaching at the American University and UCSD. She is known to have been a writer in residence at the Hollins College and Lynchburg College in Virginia. For a short duration, Alice has even worked as an English lecturer at the University of New Hampshire. As a writer, Alice has penned numerous novels and feels blessed to have been able to carry her careers of teaching and writing together with ease. In addition to the full length novels, author Alice has also written several short stories, which have appeared in various literary magazines such as Mademoiselle, Seventeen, Ms. Redbook, and The New Yorker. Alice has even published a few articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times. As of today, author Alice resides in Washington, DC, along with her beloved husband and 3 children. Alice’s husband works as a Neuro-scientist. Author Alice is a follower of Catholism, however, once she deemed that she is not very good at following her religion. Author Alice won the Whiting Writers Award in 1987 for one of her novels. She has also been nominated for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize on three occasions in the category of the best fiction novel.

The debut novel of Alice’s career, A Bigamists’ Daughter, was released to wide appreciations in 1982. This was followed by That Night in 1987, which received a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize along with the Los Angeles Times Prize and the National Book Prize. In the cover review for the Book in the NY Times Book Review by David Leavitt, That Night was praised as an original work from author Alice. The Warner Bros production house bought the film rights of this novel and released the film in 1992. Alice’s third novel was also published in 1992 and went on to become a NY Times bestseller. The book was praised by many reviewers in the NY Times, who called it a rich, masterly work, haunting, and supple prose of literary art. In Charming Billy, author Alice has told the story of late Billy Lynch within a tightly knit Irish-American community matrix. This tragic story was labeled as eloquent and heartbreaking. The Kirkus Reviews described the book as nostalgic and softly resonant tale that was told masterfully by author Alice. Such great reviews helped Alice a lot to progress in her literary career. She gained huge motivation and boost from the praises and continue to write many more interesting novels over the years.

An excellent book written by author Alice McDermott in her career is called ‘The Ninth Hour’. This book was published in 2017 by the Farra, Straus & Giroux publishers. The main characters mentioned in this book include Sally, who is introduced as an unborn child of Irish immigrants at the novel’s beginning. At the start of the book’s story, it is shown that on a winter afternoon, a young immigrant from Ireland commits suicide in his tenement in Brooklyn. He kills himself by opening the gas taps of the apartment. The man seemed determined to prove to his subway bosses who fired him and his pregnant, badgering wife that his life belongs to him and only him, and only can decide how to spend it. During the fire aftermath, an old nun, Sister St Savior, appears suddenly and guides the pregnant woman to safety. The story begins deep inside the Catholic Brooklyn during the initial part of the 20th century. Superstition, shame, and decorum collude to take away the brief existence of the man. His suicide seems to reverberate through numerous lives over the years, testing the demands and limits of sacrifice and love, of forgetfulness and forgiveness, and proceeds through a number of generations. The unborn child described at the start of the book, Sally, goes on to become the central part of the story. Along with Sally, the loving and caring nuns and neighborhood families are provided with extraordinary sympathy through the words of author Alice in trademark intelligence and lucidity.

Another mind blowing that author Alice wrote is called ‘After This’. This novel was released by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2006. Alice has depicted the central characters in this novel as Annie Keane, Michael Keane, Jacob, Clare, etc. Through this book, author Alice has tried to provide a vivid depiction of an American family during the middle decades of 20th century. The story is compassionate, wry, and witty. It appears to capture the political, spiritual, and social upheavals of the decades in the form of the experiences of a middle class family comprising of 4 children and their changing worlds. As Annie and Michael Keane get a taste of the alternately bitter and intoxicating first fruits of sexual revolution, the older brother Jacob seems to lag behind. He decides to visit Vietnam. In the meantime, the youngest of the four, Clare, decides to maintain her innocence. The novel is full of tragedies and passions of an important era of our history. It depicts the clash of faith bound, traditional life with the modern freedom. Also, the story has successfully captured the elements of joy, anger, love, and sorrow, that undermine and underpin the meaning of having a family. Author Alice’s inimitable grace and understanding of these elements has added more feel to this story.