That Night by Alice McDermott Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of That Night
Book Review: Do yourself a favor -- read something else.
Summary: 2 Stars
Men actually leave their yards and talk to one another. Children lie to each other about who does and who does not know how babies are made. Women spy on the house of another woman they don't much care for. And perhaps most shocking of all, Mrs. Carpenter sits in a chair that she purchased with no intention of sitting in. It sounds like suburbia to me. But in Alice McDermott's That Night, these actions are highly transgressive acts that violate the limits of the characters' previously circumscribed roles in the neighborhood. For men, that means not leaving your yard and barely saying hello to anyone. For women, the role is that of the stay-at-home gossip, fantasizing about widowhood and asking, about Sheryl's mother Ann: "What can you do for a woman like that?" What cataclysmic event incited these changes? A boyfriend wants to talk to his girlfriend. He and his friends confront her mother. Violence ensues, jarring the denizens of this neighborhood out of their own despair over the "difficult, enduring stuff of daily life," (36) and for a while, the community is transformed. Soon enough though, men go back to barely acknowledging each other, and "that night" becomes little more than a touchstone for the neighborhood gossip. This is suburbia according to McDermott: a tragedy happens in the lives of people you barely know, and at first glance it appears that the neighbors are rallying around the sufferers, when in fact, suburbanites need the pain of others to distract them from their own voids, and get a secondary benefit of always having something to talk about.
Our source of information about "that night," (a phrase invoked throughout the work to the point of heavy-handedness) the narrator, informs us "even children know you cannot separate the tale from the teller." (157) While this maxim seems self-evident when one is reading works such as The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, or the more recent, Middlesex, it certainly gave me pause when I read it in That Night. What are we to make of this statement, when McDermott does not let the narrator be known by us? Clues are sprinkled throughout as to what this person has been up to since "that night," but they don't add up to a character I can put my trust in, essential in a work where the narrator is the empathic vessel through which the reader witnesses all of the events of and surrounding "that night." She tells us about Sheryl's relationship with Rick; she tells us about Sheryl's experience in Ohio, and she is absent from both scenarios, as well as many others she also tells us about. This "ability" of the narrator to report on events that she did not attend led me to wonder whether or not as an adult she was imagining/inventing an entire sweeping context for a traumatic event she witnessed one evening during her childhood. Continuously, I asked myself: how would the narrator know this? I understand that sometimes the reader must accept the conventions that a novelist employs, but I felt here plausibility is under too much of a strain.
Eugenides avoids this trap in Middlesex by engaging us with a narrator we know a lot about - we know who Cal is, what he would or would not say, how he would act in a given situation - and by making him essential to the action of the story. McDermott doesn't even give her narrator a name. And yet, at the end of the book, much attention is paid to the demise of her marriage, and the selling of her parents' house. I found this to be a very curious choice on McDermott's part: why develop her character in the last chapter of the book when there was so little development before this point? Then I got to page 164, when the narrator talks to Rick, now a defeated man, who has come to look at her parents' house. She "asked him, `Do you know why she [Sheryl] moved away?' There was a coy hint of gossip in my voice...." The narrator is happy and quick to open old wounds for Rick. Whoever the little girl was that witnessed "that night," she has become one of the adults around her at the time, a person obsessed with one small event emblematic of the misery of other people. Sounds like a suburbanite to me.
Book Review: Fantastic novel with extraordinary writing style
Summary: 3 Stars
Alice McDermott once again proves her best-selling author status in her novel THAT NIGHT. McDermott represents her original style of writing and her different point of view of important issues faced by the youth of today and yesterday. In this novel, she expands on a subject that is sometimes overlooked or shoved under the proverbial rug. This subject can be summarized in two words, teenage pregnancy. She uses her off-the-wall style of writing to enhance the importance of this subject and yet at the same time show the humorous side of it by portraying the story through the eyes of a child. Alice McDermott's purpose in writing the book That Night was to explore the other side of a teenage pregnancy, the side that deals with the emotions and feelings of the teens. She foreshadows the pregnancy by portraying the boyfriend as a hoodlum to begin with, so the pregnancy is believable and the relationship between the two teens is credible. Judging from the story, McDermott's values are somewhat flexible. She shows the relationship between the two kids as young and immature, yet she seems almost as if she condones the pregnancy. McDermott shows a moderately unbiased view towards the subject she writes about by continually shifting the focus to the young child through which the story is told. This act nonchalantly brings about the first person point of view from which she tells the story. McDermott's style is uniquely set apart from any other novel in its class. She jumps from present, into past, into present again, but she doesn't lose the attention of the reader somehow. Her tone is very laid back and conversational, yet she still shows her point of view in a very realistic manner. The story of two young teens in a passionate love affair really catches the attention of the reader. McDermott's use of symbolism in using two passionate teens to represent the hot summer nights is extraordinary. McDermott shows the irony of a little girl relating the story of a teen in the middle of a life decision that she, although much later, will have to face in her future. The diction used by McDermott proved also to be original. She depicts the little girl as being more mature than she really is by relating the deep and intelligent thoughts through the 8 year old. Her diction, although original, is somewhat unreal. McDermott fails to have the little child converse with anyone and also fails to give her a name. Granted, this fact may have some valid reasoning that is hidden among the suspense of the fighting and mystery. McDermott has the plot unravel in an odd sequence, which enhances the element of suspense in the novel. She uses intense imagery to display the raw emotion taking place in the novel. Descriptions of the fight are prevalent throughout the novel because the whole plot of the story is based around the one night when everyone's emotions went wild and the explanation of why this happened. I believe that Alice McDermott has her very own style of writing and she has a very effective style of writing. Although I may not always agree with the way she introduced an idea or event, I highly regard her opinion and accept that she has reasoning for writing the way she does and introducing things the way she does. Her literary tactics are completely her own and they do an excellent job of making the reader think and contemplate on a new level. Her use of retelling the story through the eyes of an unbiased child is genius. By relating her novel in this means also heightens the innocence factor of the novel. That Night by Alice McDermott confirms this author's ability to bring forth a novel of such character and originality that it can become a best seller. Her other novels also attest to her brilliant writing style, however odd it may seem. Making a best sellers list usually requires large amounts of experience, but Alice McDermott accomplished this status twice within only a few years of a published career.Book Review: Forget the movie - read the book
Summary: 5 Stars
I've just re-read this book after almost 20 years and found it as fresh and original and as moving as the first time. McDermott's style is sparse yet rich - if that sounds like a contradiction, think of a short poem that evokes an entire world in a few lines. This book does the same, in prose that sometimes can be read like a poem, in less than 200 pages. It is carefully constructed, moving back and forth in time and among the characters, something other reviewers found confusing; I suggest they stick to what's on the bestseller rack at their local supermarket to avoid over-exercising their brains. I also find the suggestion annoying that the book is somehow not as good as the movie because it avoids all that Hollywood balderdash about love being so strong that a guy will do anything to get back together with the girl taken from him "to spend the rest of his life with her". Instead of this sort of "and they lived happily ever after" trash the book shows us - lets us experience - the much more moving, bitter reality of life, both in the masterful descriptions of the suburban families on and around "That Night" and in what becomes of the two protagonists in the years that follow. Highly recommended to anyone interested in great literature; NOT recommended to anyone who has seen the movie and now wants to relive it by reading the book or who wants to read "a nice romantic novel" - that's not what this is, as one disappointed reviewer noted. To him/her my advice would be, if you want to get drunk quickly, try bourbon instead of champagne.Book Review: INTERESTING
Summary: 4 Stars
I did not find this to be the best of Alice McDermott's works, but I did enjoy it........Rick and Sheryl are high school sweet hearts. Sheryl's father died suddenly, leaving an empty place in her heart. She fills that emptiness with Rick and when she tells her mother that she might be pregnant, her mother immediately sends her from their home in a Long Island suburb to an aunt's family in Ohio....Sheryl did not even have time to let Rick know and he is going crazy trying to find her until finally, one evening he and some pals armed with chains go to Sheryl's house causing a riot......The men of the neighborhood come to the aid of Sheryl's mother and the boys get arrested and everyone gets treated for minor injuries......In the meantime, Sheryl tried to reach Rick by phone, but never was able to talk to him.......Sheryl and Rick go on to live out their lives as their destiny dictates.......This story brings us back to our own teen years and first loves.Book Review: INTERESTING
Summary: 4 Stars
I did not find this to be the best of Alice McDermott's works, but I did enjoy it........Rick and Sheryl are high school sweet hearts. Sheryl's father died suddenly, leaving an mpty place in her heart. She fills that emptiness with Rick and when she tells her mother that she might be pregnant, her mother immediately sends her from their home in a Long Island suburb to and aunt's family in Ohio....Sheryl did not even have time to let Rick know and he is going crazy trying to find her until finally one evening he and some pals armed with chains go to Sheryl's house causing a riot......The men of the neighborhood come to the aid of Sheryl's mother and the boys get arrested and everyone gets treated for minor injuries......In the meantime, Sheryl tried to reach Rick by phone, but never was able to talk to him.......Sheryl and Rick go on to live out their lives as their destiny dictates.......This story brings us back to our own teen years and first loves.