That Night [Paperback]

Alice McDermott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 1999

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 fueled by fierce, true love. This is the night they will talk about and remember as the moment everything changed forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Further developing the inventive narrative technique she used in A Bigamist's Daughter, McDermott masterfully blurs the lines between reality and illusion, offering a work on several levels. Her narrator reflects on an incident that shattered the serenity and naivete of her suburban world of the early 1960s, when she was 10 years old, and claims that event as a point of departure for her fertile imaginative powers. An opening scene of violence played out under a "bright navy sky" on a soft midsummer night "when Venus was bright," captures the tone and focus of the novel, which recalls the doomed love affair of teenagers Sheryl and Rick. McDermott makes the relationship between her two ordinary, unattractive protagonists poignant and believable. A mesmerizing storyteller, she evokes the aching vulnerability of adolescent love, in this case between two lost, despairing not-quite-adults. The forced parting of the two teenagers also marks a rite of passage for the other families in the middle-class Long Island neighborhood, as parents comprehend that even their fierce love for their children will not be enough protection against life's inevitable blows. In spare prose of remarkable acuity, McDermott captures a time and place and a social era. Her narrative voice, romantically elegiac and yet premonitory of doom, is strong and compelling.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“A novel about miracles...To enter the world of this incantatory novel is to palpably recall, almost against one’s will, the rash, embattled strivings and disillusionments of first love.”—Washington Post Book World

“A rare and memorable work...a mythical tale about America that remembers when youth was young and hope
prevailed...a moving and captivating novel, both celebration and elegy.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Remarkable...a dazzling mosaic of details and images...McDermott has wrought a miracle.”—Chicago Tribune

“Splendid...original...a rich discursive prose style that belongs entirely to Alice McDermott.”—New York Times Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback; Dial Press Trade Pbk. Ed edition (January 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385333307
• ISBN-13: 978-0385333306
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, December 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: That Night (Paperback)

This is one of my all time favorites. I first read it when I was barely out of my teens and identified with Sheryl, the teenager who becomes pregnant and is sent away to live with relatives. Now, as a suburban mother, I identify with the mothers whose lives- dashed hopes and dreams - and those of their husbands and children are so vividly described in McDermott's uncanny way of creating a visual and lyrical snapshot of suburban life in the sixties.

Alice McDermott really gets it right. Early love and the inevitable loss of it colors the way we think for the rest of our lives. The memories this novel brings back to me are so strong that this is one of the few books I re-read every few months.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved This Book!, November 25, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: That Night (Paperback)

I loved this book! I graduated from high school in 1959 and this book took me back, no doubt about it. I knew a couple of girls who got pregnant while still in school, and it was as terrible as is depicted in this book. (Thank goodness for progress and change.....) This book has very strong, well-developed, definitive characters, especially the young narrator. I can still feel the book as if I lived in the neighborhood......

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous! I'd like to see this one back in print., July 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: That Night (Unbound)

Rick and Sheryl are high school sweethearts involved in an intense love affair. When Sheryl discovers that she's pregnant, her mother sends her away, not even giving Sheryl a chance to say goodbye to her beloved. When Rick comes to find -- he hopes to rescue -- Sheryl from her mother's home, a fight ensues. The narrator is Sheryl's neighbor, who was a little girl at the time of the fight, and who found Rick and Sheryl's relationship utterly romantic and fascinating at the time. Her memories of the fight, and of that summer, are long-lasting, and she describes those memories in that way that makes them seem to glow a little more softly as the time has passed. The book recaptures lost youth, and at the same time makes us realize that our youth is truly irretrievable. I love this book even more now than when I first read it in 1987! (FYI, the book is by Alice McDermott.)