Someone by Alice McDermott

This book is a well written and relatively short novel that was one of the year's best in the opinion of the New York Times--the thing that is remarkable about it is just how tightly written it is.  Marie is an Irish-American woman who grew up in Brooklyn.  The book spans from her childhood through the end of her life, with the past and the mor recent aspects of her life interwoven throughout the book in a wonderful and striaghtforward way.  What is wonderful is that you know something about her later life when you are learning about her youth, so you can see how tha tfits into her overall make up, how events that transpired impacted who she became.  It is straightforward in that it is not hard or confusing to bounce back and forth between the past and the present (I am just not good at the stream of conscience books that go all over the lifespan with no anchor points, and this book handles this in a way that is almost lyrical).  Marie is a relatively uncomplicated and undramatic woman who is so interesting to get to know.

So please, take an afternoon and devote it to this compact marvelous novel that spans a life that begins between the World Wars and into modern life.