- Hardcover: 280 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; First Edition edition (19 Aug 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747544336
- ISBN-13: 978-0747544333
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 15.2 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (156 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,229,812 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Charming Billy is a devastating account of the power of longing and lies, love's tenacity and resignations hold. Even at his funeral party, Billy Lynch's life remains up for debate. This soft-spoken, poetry lover's drinking was as legendary among his Queens', New York, family and friends as was his disappointment in love. But the latter, as his cousin Dennis knows, "was, after all, yet another sweet romance to preserve." After World War II, both young men had spent one sun-swept week on Long Island, renovating a house and falling in with two Irish sisters--nannies to a wealthy family--"marvelling, marvelling still, that this Eden was here, at the other end of the same island on which they had spent their lives." By the end of their idyll, Billy and Eva were engaged, though she was set to return to County Wicklow. Determined to earn enough money to bring her, her family, and if necessary her entire village back to the US, Billy took two jobs, one of which would indenture him for years. But despite the money he sent, Eva never returned, and then was suddenly dead of pneumonia. The true tragedy is that she had simply kept her fare and married someone else--a secret Dennis keeps for the next 30 years as he watches Billy fall into a loveless marriage and the self-administered anaesthesia of alcohol. Alice McDermott's quiet, striking novel is a study of the lies that bind and the weight of familial wishes. She seems far less interested in the shock of revelation than in her characters' power to live through personal disaster. As Dennis's daughter pieces together Billy's real history, she also learns of the accommodations her own family had long made--and discovers that good intentions can be as destructive as the truth they mean to hide. Amazon.com
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'a thundering good read.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
McDermott writes with a different style in Charming Billy, so that at times I found it difficult to follow who is narrating the story and how that person got their perspective. It is a good perspective, and the entire story is pleasantly understated. It lacks high drama, as most of our lives actually do, and thus portrays an unfortunate love story (or more accurately the results of an unfortunate love) in a natural,low-key, even contemplative manner. It is the result of unwisely loving -- in this case the anti-hero Billy loves too much or too blindly or too optimistically -- that is explained in the novel. Billy's life story is not given in detail, but the effect of his drinking and despair as it touches other's lives is what we witness through the tale. There is sadness here, as well as hope; humor and pain; honesty, deceit, compassion, regret ... oh, it is very much like real life. I found it difficult to put down, because the book itself seemed to beckon me right back into its pages (I finally gave up and just read it through to the end). Something about it is compelling, although the plot itself is so tame that I could not explain the irresistability of the story. The only problem I found was that the author tends to be repetitive, citing information and then coming up with a scene about it several pages later. Otherwise, it is worth the read merely to enjoy the unusual narrative style and how the story of a life and the lives affected by it evolves. For all his sorrows and his drinking, you may come away, as I did, charmed by the anti-hero in Charming Billy.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life among a tightly knit group of Irish Americans in Queens, New York, it easily loses the reader's interest despite some of its complex themes and occasional poignancy. Quite frankly, it is a somewhat dull book with little to redeem it, as the title character is anything but charming. Billy is nothing more than a self-absorbed boozer who eventually drinks himself to death. The reader ends up not caring a whit for Billy.
What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.
His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.
Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoyed Charming Billy because it is sweet and nostalgic. It is a sensitive book in which feelings play the major part. Its best scenes take place on Long Island, just after the war, when Billy and his cousin meet the Irish girls who will transform their lives. The descriptions are atmospheric, the action slow-paced, the situations understated.
This book is like a rose whose petals are plucked one by one. It begins with Billy's funeral. Piece by piece, it tells the chain of events that has led to his death, from the fateful encounter with the Irish girl, in his early adulthood. Billy is sentimental. Billy wants to believe not just in love, but that love is what gives meaning to life. Ultimately this only leads to waste, as he is duped by a worthless woman and protected against his own best interests by his well-meaning cousin. Or does it? Was his belief, his sincerity what made Billy charming? Ms McDermott lets us decide.
The book has interesting contrasts between the post-war and depression years, and more recent times. It is set among the Irish-American community. While it is different in style from the darkly sarcastic and humorous Angela's Ashes, there are intriguing comparisons to make between the two, and Charming Billy may be worth reading as a `sequel' to the Irish book.
This book is like a rose whose petals are plucked one by one. It begins with Billy's funeral. Piece by piece, it tells the chain of events that has led to his death, from the fateful encounter with the Irish girl, in his early adulthood. Billy is sentimental. Billy wants to believe not just in love, but that love is what gives meaning to life. Ultimately this only leads to waste, as he is duped by a worthless woman and protected against his own best interests by his well-meaning cousin. Or does it? Was his belief, his sincerity what made Billy charming? Ms McDermott lets us decide.
The book has interesting contrasts between the post-war and depression years, and more recent times. It is set among the Irish-American community. While it is different in style from the darkly sarcastic and humorous Angela's Ashes, there are intriguing comparisons to make between the two, and Charming Billy may be worth reading as a `sequel' to the Irish book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Charming Billy - an all time favourite
I truly loved this book and I think it will always be special to me. First time I tried it I could not get into it at all but I persevered and am so glad that I did. Read more
Published on 31 July 2006 by KiwiGirl
NOT SO CHARMING BILLY...
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life... Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2003 by Lawyeraau
Warm and Wise
On the afternoon of Billy Lynch's funeral, his family and friends gather at a New York restaurant to discuss this charismatic man whom "everyone loved" and who, apparently, "died... Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2002
NOT SO CHARMING BILLY...
I am amazed that this book won the National Book Award in 1998. While the author's prose is lush and evocative of times gone by and captures the flavor of lower middle class life... Read more
Published on 5 Nov 2002 by Lawyeraau
A character study through the eyes of a burdened family
Alice McDermott crafts a thoughtful eulogy to the sad earthly existence of the nararrator's Uncle Billy, a sweet, mannered alcoholic resigned to life without true love. Read more
Published on 5 Sep 1999
Artistry in language and story telling
Alice McDermott takes the reader on a guided tour of a man's life through the eyes of his family and friends. Read more
Published on 2 Sep 1999
Well-crafted, but empty
The emptiness of the characters spills over into the essence of the book. And I don't think this is intentional. Read more
Published on 28 Aug 1999
Lovely final chapter....
McDermott clearly has a way with the language, and much of her writing is a pleasure to read. The final chapter, in which the father and daughter go to the beach house, is... Read more
Published on 27 Aug 1999
Once you get over the hurdle...
Ms. McDermott writes beautiful prose. She knows how to capture a character at a vulnerable moment; and this is reason enough to read all the way through. Read more
Published on 23 Aug 1999
Achingly boring
I simply did not give a care about these people. The story was dull, the style uninteresting. Enough said.
Published on 19 Aug 1999
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