A Bigamist's Daughter [Paperback]

Alice McDermott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 1999

Elizabeth Connelly sits in a New York office that looks like a real editor’s, but isn’t quite. Employed at a vanity press, Elizabeth watches the real world—of real struggles, passion, pain, and love—spin around her. Until one day, a young writer comes to her with a novel about a man who loves more than one woman at once. And suddenly Elizabeth will be awakened from her young urban professional slumber—by a man’s real touch, by a real story in search of an ending, by the unraveling of the greatest masquerade of all—in Alice McDermott’s luminous novel of memory, revelation, and desire.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Impressive...McDermott writes with assurance and skill, and has created a fascinatingly prismatic story.”—Anne Tyler, New York Times Book Review

“McDermott is an enormously skilled and assured writer who transforms the ordinary into something resonant and magical.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Alice McDermott’s novels are like family albums, each scene hazy with the yellow light of history, nostalgic as faded Polaroids.”—San Francisco Examiner

“Splendid...this is nothing less than a brilliant first novel.”—Virginia Quarterly Review

About the Author

Alice McDermott is the author of five previous novels, including A Bigamist’s Daughter; Child of My Heart; Charming Billy; winner of the 1998 National Book Award; At Weddings and Wakes; and That Night. She lives with her family outside Washington, D.C.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback (January 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385333293
• ISBN-13: 978-0385333290
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,660,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Potential but needed more development, July 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Bigamist's Daughter (Paperback)

This book had such potential, but the characters were so static and did not develop or mature in any way throughout the novel. I was very disappointed in the protagonist's unemotional responses to emotional situations and subjects. McDermott does have a beautiful style of writing, but she did not take these characters to the level that she could have. The ending was anti-climatic and frustrating.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Enough already!, May 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Bigamist's Daughter (Paperback)

I am so sick of this character. How many - single women in their 20's who live on their own in a big city with powerful careers and no life outside of it, who are independent enough to have sex and not care, yet can't focus on anything else except sex and love - do I have to read about? I was this woman for a good number of years, but I had a lot more going on in my life. Please - SOMEBODY give these characters some dimension.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What Was the Point?, October 15, 2000

By 

"noznabuk" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Bigamist's Daughter (Paperback)

Elizabeth Connelly works for a Manhattan vanity press. When Tupper Daniels, a sure-to-be-published author presents her with the story of a bigamist in his southern hometown, she jokingly kids that her own father had more than one wife.

Tupper's book lacks an ending, and Elizabeth seriously considers whether her father was indeed a bigamist. Together author and editor forge a relationship to search for the end of one story and the truth of another. I reached the end of A BIGAMIST'S DAUGHTER without resolution to either quest. I'm not even sure what becomes of Tupper and Elizabeth, the couple.

As a story that describes itself as "an absolutely contemporary portrait of a new generation's search for--and avoidance of--committment in life and love," it's not a picture I would hang on a wall.