Customer Reviews

Charming Billy

5 star:		(83)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(48)
2 star:		(54)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

Like the earlier reader with a 5 star review, I too had to comment on "Charming Billy" after reading the negative customer reviews which have recently been posted here. Though I read this book months ago, it remains one of the best written and most memorable books I have read in many years. It cannot be said to be an enjoyable book, unless can take pleasure in the level of artistry and characterization achieved by a subtle writer. It does not depend on plot, the story's main events are revealed early--both in the text and in all the reviews. There is no suspense, no submarine or serial killer, no cannibalism or girlish conversations. To witness Billy's destruction as a participant in the drama--for that is the achievement of the author, to have forced the reader beyond distant observation--is painful and wears on your ability to accept the depressing emotions that result. For those whose imagination can only be stimulated when their heart is accelerating, this book cannot satisfy, but reading it is a moving experience. It is an exploration of motivation, of self-destruction, of love and of the quality of 'unselfishness', of the sources of decay and of the misguided nature of those who take upon themselves the judgement of what is best for others. It makes you wish you could weep and find some relief.

First off, it's amazing how polarized these reviews are! I guess you either love this book or you hate it.

I started Charming Billy with an open mind. However, it is the only book I have had to FORCE myself to finish. It took such effort to drag myself to the end of it. It's also one of the few books I wish I had never bought.

Though I respect everyone's opinion, I honestly can't understand some of the other reviewers' fascination with the prose or characterization. To me, the book seemed so awkwardly written, like something I had written in creative writing in college (believe me, I am NOT complimenting myself :) The prose is very self-conscious. I couldn't lose myself in either the characters or their story because I couldn't get past the facade of the words.

Why on earth did McDermott write this book from the perspective of the daughter of one of the main characters? It takes a while to figure out who is speaking and when you do know who it is, you never find out WHO SHE IS. You never get to know her at all. She barely speaks to the other characters, rarely interacting even in the group scenes. Her distance from the story creates distance for the reader. Without some connection to her as the voice of the story, it's hard to care about what she's telling you. (And - most awkwardly, I must say - at times she seems to be directing the story to her husband. Why? Does anyone have an opinion on this?)

To be fair, I thought the story briefly lit up during the scenes describing Sheila and Daniel's courtship, mainly because the narrator faded into the background during those scenes. Unfortunately, throughout the rest of the story, I was unable to get past the narrator's odd presence to enjoy it.

One last comment. It seems like a lot of the readers who gave this book 5 stars think that those of us who didn't like it don't read often or are confused by the shifting time line. That's not it! I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about this one. I must say I've enjoyed reading these reviews of Charming Billy far more than the book itself.

I'm sorry to read negative reviews of this book. It was exquisite, in simplicity of language, vividness of character, intracacies of plot and structure. What I love is the mirroring of lives as tales are told through the perspectives of the generations of this Irish American family. Billy's story is Dennis' story; Eva's story is Maeve's story; Kate's story is is Claire's story, and all stories are the narrator's story: that's what a family is. So much to explore and reflect upon here: youth, death, obsession, love, perception, truth, benevolence, mercy, generosity, guilt, selfishness, redemption, illusion, reality, to say nothing of alcoholism, marriage, family, success, racism and religion. My favorite line, which I think sums the book up tidily: "...then the story of his life, or the story they would begin to re-create for him this afternoon, would have to take another turn." There is the reality of a life, and quite separate from it are the perceptions that color it, in actuality and in memory. This book exquisitely explores perception and attitude, and the difference they make in a life. Hats off to Alice McDermott; this is such a rewarding, thought-provoking piece of work, I just thank her for creating it.

The Irish in Limerick. The Irish in Dublin. And now the Irish in Queens. Alice McDermott takes us on a protracted tour of various dismal little neighborhoods that she tells us too much about in this repetitive, stifling, claustrophobic memoir. But the book's main figure is one Billy Lynch, a charming, sweet, intelligent Irish man completely loyal to a lost cause and utterly self-destructive. We are asked to enter Billy's "glorious" life and listen to the endless talk of all his relatives, his neighbors, and his lost love Eva, over whom he apparently pines away for years and years, believing she died in Ireland after having had a brief summer romance with him on Long Island. We are told over and over and over again about this tragic affair and how Billy took to his cups over it, or maybe not. The book's characters endlessly debate this point. But then, the kicker is, Eva really didn't die after all. She just couldn't take Billy (and I don't wonder why) but instead absconded with his $500 he sent her to bring her back to him from Ireland. Indeed, Eva went off and married someone else, had four kids, gained weight, and grew old, just like most folks do. Except for old Billy, who pined and pined and drank and drank and fell on his face all over Queens, much to the chagrin of his hopelessly loyal martyred wife and wise, but ineffectual cousin Dennis. Well, this story isn't quite enough to make a full-blown book, so we have to hear about everyone else's life too, not just Billy's, but Billy's cousin Dennis, Dennis's mom, Dennis's mom's husbands, Dennis's wife, Billy's wife, and even some of the neighbors. These people really don't bring much to the party, the whole lot of them, except long suffering, lots of talk about one another, lots of talk about the Church, and constant speculation about Billy and what made his poor miserable glorious soul tick. At about page 112 I really wanted to be done with this suffocating story except the blurbs wallpapered all over its cover and insides kept telling me it was "heartbreaking," "brilliant," "astoundingly beautiful," and, worst of all, the National Book Award Winner! So I plowed on, hoping for Joycean ecstasies or McCourt-like pathos, only to find more of the same, written with dogged persistence, and finally ending with a marriage of cousin Dennis to Billy's martyred widow. As I unhappily turned the last page, I wondered what was wrong with me. Why wasn't I thinking "magical," "mesmerizing," and "poignant" instead of miserable, merciless, and dull? Did it strike too close to my cradle Catholic roots or my Queens depressing childhood? Or was the book really a failure in editing? Is it just an overblown short story that should have been rigorously cut down and distilled to its essence? Yes, I think that's it. I would have been much happier if it were half as long, made its unhappy point, and said goodbye. Properly edited, it may even have been able to stand close to the work of the great Edna O'Brien or the mighty Flannery O'Connor. But as it stands now, I advise you to bring a tank of oxygen along when you read it. You'll need it to stop from smothering in its endless chatter, unwanted details, and airless atmosphere.

I decided to read this again for a more substantive acknowledgement of St. Patrick's Day. Again, I found myself emotionally moved by this trully touching and profound work.

While all McDermott's works speak with a distinctly metropolitan New York Irish Catholic voice I have found this novel almost eerie in how precisely it represents this subculture. She reflects a thorough understanding of the group's psyche: its dreams, fears, strengths, prejudices, passions, and most importantly its weaknesses. The author shows uncanny skill in assessing character through observations which convincingly depict the motivations that inspire behavior. Her prose is both beautiful and profoundly insightful, in a characteristically understated Irish fashion.

Reading "Charming Billy" for me was unsettling. I felt as if McDermott was describing my family and the others with whom I grew up, revealing both those things we hid as well as those of we were proud. While this novel makes your heart ache its tremendous beauty is deeply satisfying.

I have to say that I am aghast at the few reviews on here I've read for "Charming Billy." I'm not even sure where I should begin. I guess I should start off by saying that it was a bit of school pride that prompted me to buy the book in the first place. Ms. McDermott teaches at my university, so when she won the National Book Award, of course it was great and wonderful news. Though, when I got the book, I read a little, but placed it aside, mainly because my workload at school was a little overwhelming. That, and I knew I wanted to give my full attention to the world of "Charming Billy" because even from the beautiful, supple prose of the opening scenes at the bar, I knew that reading this book was something I did not want to do half-heartedly. And how glad I am that I did that! "Charming Billy" is a perfect piece of a book. It's so wonderfully written -- phrases repeating throughout that accentuate the daily routine of life; elegance and restraint in the descriptions of even the tiniest quirks and personality traits; a insightful and ingenious examination into the way we live and the way we live off (both the positive and negative connotations) of others. To read a review on here where the reviewer said something to the effect of "Oh, well, I just can't like a drunk character," well...quite frankly, it bothers me. Yes, Billy was an alcoholic, and his death was a consequence thereof, but calling Billy a drunk is missing the point of the story. Reading "Charming Billy" means opening yourself to a magical experience. If you read it correctly, it will stay with you always.

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 of drink." Questions abound: Why would Billy drink himself to death? How unhappy was he in his marriage to the plain-but-faithful Maeve? And what of Eva, his first love? If Billy had managed to have a future with Eva, would his life have taken a different turn? Was Billy's pathetic outcome just a matter of fate?

The narrator of Charming Billy is a cousin-once-removed of the protagonist, the daughter of Billy's best friend, Dennis, and probably the author's alter ego. Although intelligent and perceptive, the narrator is also rather critical of the pride, prejudice, sexism, racism, faith and clannish behavior she observes in her elders.

Charming Billy is a wonderful story of second and third-generation Irish-Americans, most of whom are blood relatives and live and love and laugh and drink and work for Consolidated Edison in the Queens borough of New York City. In the hands of a lesser author, a book such as Charming Billy might be one in which we would soon lose interest, but McDermott, a wonderful writer, brings Billy to life as well as illuminating the lives of this tightly-knit Irish-American community.

The opening scene, in a restaurant following Billy's funeral, is a brilliant social satire reminiscent of James T. Farrell's stories about Irish-Americans in Chicago, Can All This Grandeur Perish, written in 1937. McDermott, however, is less scathing, more sentimental and humorous, than was Farrell.

The characters in Charming Billy are warmly and well-drawn. They all have names like Dennis and Danny and Kevin and Rosemary and Bridie and Maeve. They are patriotic Americans, to be sure, but still proud of their Irish heritage and some of them even speak with a brogue. Part of the value of this warm and wonderful novel lies in the concern and respect with which McDermott treats past and current Irish-American issues.

McDermott writes in prose so masterful that we can almost hear the delightful Irish lilt in the voices of the speakers. There is a beautifully rhythmic cadence that captures the ebb and flow of conversation perfectly and one that never fails to involve the reader on an intensely emotional level. At the post-funeral dinner, Billy's sister takes the pragmatic view that "Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids nor not...Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same." Billy's bachelor friend and drinking partner, Dan Lynch, defends Billy, taking a more romantic view of Billy's life: "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed...But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate."

Why did Billy Lynch's life turn out so miserably? Why did this charming and lovable man "die of drink?" That is the central mystery, the question on which this novel of personal revelation turns. As the narrator tries to make sense of Billy's life, she finds herself also investigating both her father's life and her own as well. As she uncovers first one fact and then another, the mystery of "why" and "why not" only deepens.

It cannot be denied that Billy Lynch was a man seduced by the bar. "A world where love...could be spoken of by a hand on the shoulder, a fresh drink placed on the bar, Good to see you, through welling tears, real ones now, Ah, Billy, it's always good to see you. Dark, sparkling, sprinkled with moments when the sound and smell and sight of the place...transported him, however briefly, to a summer night long ago when he was young and life was all promise."

Any sensitive reader will find Charming Billy a wonderful investigation into the motivations and mysteries of life and love as written by one of the best authors of the twentieth century.

I'm not sure what the negative reviewers below were looking for, but I'll tell you that if you're looking for a wonderful evocation of certain past times, places, and people, this book is it. Ms. McDermott creates a Long Island of the 40s and a Queens of the 80s that are so real that you can hear the characters speaking in that New York Irish brogue. I read passages aloud and found myself wanting to read it that way. This is a sad, beautiful novel, about the loss of hopes and dreams, the resignation to a certain path in life, about the pain of self- medication, about the ties that truly do bind, about the need for ritual...I could go on, but I won't. I recommend the book heartily.

I finished the book today and I thought it was much better than the reviews. Some of the insight hit so close to home I don't even have the words yet to describe it.I thought it was easy to read, but I appreciate old movies too where they leave a little to the imagination. Charming Billy is a tragic figure for sure. I understood the authors point but actually thought she romanticized the alcohol part, but did so in a way that was true to our Irish culture, which on the one hand has always made me uncomfortable. It may be a dreary story but it rang true for me. I can imagine all the characters sitting around at a wake all speaking at once, each one making the same point. It is so Irish. I would give the book 4 stars but the story is a hard one unless you have lived it I guess.

Sometimes the books that are showered with awards and drip with critical praise are the ones that disappoint you the most. It's not that "Charming Billy" is a poorly written novel. Far from it. Alice McDermott is clearly a very strong writer whose prose and dialogue are finely crafted. It's just that the storyline in this book seems to have so much promise, yet never really goes anywhere.

Our protagonist, Billy Lynch, loses his fiancée to pneumonia and spends the rest of his life drinking himself to death to assuage his pain. The book begins at his wake and then hip-hops around, filling in the blanks of his oh-so-melancholy life. Sometimes it's difficult to keep track of all the characters in Billy's sprawling, Irish-American family. But a few notes that I jotted down as I read the book definitely helped sort out all of the confusion. Most of the characters are developed very nicely. But some are glossed over, like the narrator (Billy's cousin's daughter) and a fellow named Danny Lynch (and how exactly is he related to Billy?).

If you enjoyed reading Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes," you might want to give "Charming Billy" a read. It's well written, poignant, and surely has a message. But if you're expecting a little (just a little) action, a plot twist here and there, or even a bona fide tear-jerker, this book may not be for you. Despite its strong points, "Charming Billy," just like the life of the book's hero, is not what it could have been.