Charming Billy

Alice McDermott · b. 1953 · United States

Why it matters

Mourners at an alcoholic's Irish-American funeral piece together the sentimental legend that sustained his whole beloved, wasted life: a first love lost to tragedy, or so the story always went. McDermott's National Book Award winner is elliptical, communal grief at its most exact.

At a glance

A nonlinear, communally narrated structure withholds its central revelation until well in.