At Weddings and Wakes

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.

"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