Charming Billy

Yet another fine novel by McDermott. The tone is absolutely spot on, not at all undermined by sentimentality, yet extremely sympathetic.

I found this book hard to finish. The story of Irish immigrants in New York and Long Island is probably well represented, yet it borders on the boring side.

This book offers a thoughtful, poetic dissection of a man's failed life. Okay, it's not exactly the feel-good novel of the year, and any book that starts at the funeral of a man who drank himself to death is probably not in the running for that award, anyway.