We come to know certain writers for their sentinel themes and distinctive hauntings, the literary manifestations that are something like dreams rising up again and again. Each book is different ...

Alice McDermott is rightly celebrated for her granular, nuanced portraits of mid-20th-century life, with a particular focus on Irish Americans. Her fans may be startled, ...

Alice McDermott is back with her ninth novel, joining the elite Catholic company of Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor.

Words get reused in the same paragraph, metaphors are formatted similarly time after time and details of events are revisited pages after they occur. Yet the language is delightful. McDermott ...

Alice McDermott's new book, "Absolution." Provided Still, McDermott has at the same time yearned to have a talk with Greene about a glaring omission: the women who were very much there, too.

Alice McDermott will discuss her newest novel “Absolution” during an April 11 presentation through the New York State Writers Institute. Alice McDermott was a 19-year-old sophomore majoring in ...

But National Book Award-winner Alice McDermott’s latest novel, “Absolution,” is a tale of murky motives and hidden perspectives that invites audiences to resist the urge to turn away.

CHILD OF MY HEART. By Alice McDermott. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23; 256 pp. NOVELIST ...

NPR's Juana Summers speaks with author Alice McDermott about her new novel Absolution and its central question: what do you sacrifice in order to do something good for someone else?

Humility is the one virtue you wouldn't expect Alice McDermott's characters would need to learn. Her characters are almost always Irish American, Catholic, working-class; they are often dependably ...

NPR's Juana Summers speaks with author Alice McDermott about her new novel Absolution and its central question: what do you sacrifice in order to do something good for someone else?