In 'The Ninth Hour,' A Tonic For The Ills Of The World
Alice McDermott's new novel immerses readers in the homely details of Irish Catholic Brooklyn in the early decades of the 20th century, but also addresses bigger, universal questions of love and life.
In one beautifully observed, quietly absorbing novel after another, Alice McDermott has made the insular world of New York's Irish Catholic immigrants in the first half of the 20th century her own, much as Anne Tyler has laid claim to Baltimore's middle class. And, like Tyler, in focusing tightly on a close-knit community of ordinary people, she leads us to a deeper understanding of the human condition.
McDermott's eighth novel, is about an order of nursing nuns and the
