Someone

Starred review from June 17, 2013
In this deceptively simple tour de force, McDermott (Charming Billy, winner of the National Book Award) lays bare the keenly observed life of Marie Commeford, an ordinary woman whose compromised eyesight makes her both figuratively and literally unable to see the world for what it is. When we meet her on the steps of her Brooklyn townhouse, she’s a bespectacled seven-year-old waiting for her father; McDermott then leaps ahead, when Marie, pregnant with her first child, recalls collapsing at a deli counter and the narrative plunges us into a world where death is literally just around the corner, upending the safety and comfort of her neighborhood; “In a few months’ time, I would be at death’s door, last rites and all,” she relates. We follow Marie through the milestones of her life, shadowed by her elder brother, Gabe, who mysteriously leaves the priesthood for which everyone thought he was destined. The story of Marie’s life unfolds in a nonlinear fashion: McDermott describes the loss of Marie’s father, her first experience with intimacy, her first job (in a funeral parlor of all places), her marriage, the birth of a child. We come to feel for this unremarkable woman, whose vulnerability makes her all the more winning—and makes her worthy of our attention. And that’s why McDermott, a three-time Pulitzer nominee, is such an exceptional writer: in her hands, an uncomplicated life becomes singularly fascinating, revealing the heart of a woman whose defeats make us ache and whose triumphs we cheer. Marie’s vision (and ours) eventually clears, and she comes to understand that what she so often failed to see lay right in front of her eyes. Agent: Sarah Burnes, Gernert Company.

October 28, 2013
The challenge of narrating McDermott’s latest novel is its impressionistic quality—the story wends back and forth through time, from prewar childhood in Brooklyn to middle-aged parenthood, old age, and back again. The one constant in the book is the protagonist, Marie, who has compromised eyesight, but offers keen observations about human nature. In this audio edition Kate Reading provides a needed constancy. Her female characters have a world-weariness about them. Whether they are sighing with subtle disappointment at a daughter’s inability to bake bread or keening with grief in the neighborhood funeral home, Reading makes their range of emotions entirely believable. She is not quite as successful with the novel’s male characters, which lack vocal differentiation. Even Marie’s sensitive brother Gabe and her entirely insensitive boyfriend, Walter, sound much the same. But, considering how much of the novel is about women’s lives and experiences, this is a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent performance. An FSG hardcover.

Starred review from December 1, 2013

McDermott, winner of the 1998 National Book Award for Charming Billy, returns after a seven-year absence from the publishing world with this elegantly descriptive portrait of a single ordinary life. Marie Commeford is a bespectacled Irish-Catholic child hanging out on a stoop in pre-Depression Brooklyn. As the scattered vignettes of her life unfold, Marie experiences early romantic heartbreak, a brief career in a funeral parlor, a happy marriage, and the birth of several children, including one labor that is hair-raising in its brutality. Through it all, Marie's literal myopia indicates a figurative inability to see things and people as they are, including her beloved father, who dies at an early age in circumstances that indicate possible alcoholism. In this manner McDermott suggests that all of us are blinded to the harsher realities of life by our hopes, dreams, and losses. The beauty of this book lies not so much in the fairly ordinary events of Marie's life but in the lushly descriptive details, read with simple lilting charm by Kate Reading, that lure the listener into treasuring the intimate, truthful, and sometimes painful glimpses of a lifetime viewed from every age. VERDICT Gorgeous language and honest simplicity make this story of one woman's life into a work of art. Highly recommended for all public library collections. ["While McDermott's is a quiet style, fans of her earlier work will be thrilled to come across this simple, bittersweet story," read the review of the Farrar hc, LJ 8/13.]--Claire Abraham, Keller P.L., TX

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