Click here to view a long excerpt from McDermott's novel, Charming Billy, as posted at the online literary magazine, "Boldtype." Visiting this page will help to make you more familiar with the vision of the famous author, and give you a feel for her style.

New York Times on the Web: Books: Alice McDermott
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/mcdermott.html

link text hereVisiting this site will give you access to two articles on the author ("The Storyteller is Part of the Tale," and "L.I. Streets Inspire a Novelist"), along with reviews of three of McDermott's novels, A Bigamist's Daughter, That Night, and At Weddings and Wakes. This site helps familiarize you with the personality of the author, and the style of her prose.

BIOGRAPHY
Alice McDermott (b. 1953) was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised on Long Island. She received her B.A. from the State University of New York and an M.A. from the University of New Hampshire. She published her first novel, A Bigamist's Daughter, in 1982. Her second novel, That Night, was nominated for a National Book Award and a PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and was adapted for the screen in 1992. Her third novel, At Weddings and Wakes was a New York Times best-seller, and her fourth novel, Charming Billy, won the National Book Award. She currently teaches writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.