The three children of an Irish-American family in Long Island are witnesses to the cycles of dissatisfaction, bitterness and recurring affection that make up the lives of their extended family. A tender, sad and funny book from the author of the National Book Award-nominated That Night and Charming Billy

Anna is excited to be the flower girl at her aunt’s wedding, but that morning she wakes up and ... achoo! “Don’t sneeze at the wedding!” everyone warns her, but will their remedies work?

'A stunning work' Sunday Times 'That Night has universal appeal ... there is a depth of feeling here which is beautifully - and seriously - realised' Independent ______________________ The evocative second novel from National Book Award winner Alice McDermott On a warm suburban night, the sound of lawn sprinklers is drowned out by the rumble of hot rods. Suddenly, a car careens onto a family's neat front yard, teenage boys spill out brandishing chains and leather, and a young man cries out for the girl he loves. Tonight, fathers will pick up snow shovels and rakes to defend their turf, and children will witness a battle fuelled by fierce, true love. This is the night they will talk about and remember as the moment things changed for ever.

On a wild, windy April day in Manhattan, when Mary first meets John Keane, she cannot know what lies ahead of her. A marriage, a fleeting season of romance, and the birth of four children will bring John and Mary to rest in the safe embrace of a traditional Catholic life in the suburbs. But neither Mary nor John, distracted by memories and longings, can feel the wind that is buffeting their children, leading them in directions beyond their parents’ control. Michael and his sister Annie are caught up in the sexual revolution. Jacob, brooding and frail, is drafted to Vietnam. And the youngest, Clare, commits a stunning transgression after a childhood spent pleasing her parents. As John and Mary struggle to hold on to their family and their faith, Alice McDermott weaves an elegant, unforgettable portrait of a world in flux–and of the secrets and sorrows, anger and love, that lie at the heart of every family.

A magnificent new novel from one of America’s finest writers—a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn. On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife—that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child. In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives—testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.

Praised in the highest terms by reviewers, the story of a charming, romantic Irish American explores the impact of his life and death on his family and his close-knit New York City neighborhood. Reprint.

A modern love story about a woman who photographs other people's weddings and meets the ultimate wedding party crasher.