Alice McDermott has developed a reputation as the premier chronicler of the ordinary lives of Irish Catholic New Yorkers in the twentieth century. Though reluctant to be categorized as either an Irish American writer or a Catholic writer, McDermott...

At the moment, things seem to come in threes in Alice McDermott's life: three children, three novels, three universities in which she's taught, even three cross-country moves since the launching of her remarkable career. Her son Willie, now 8, came after her first novel,...

In 1979 a nervous graduate of the University of New Hampshire's writing program handed literary agent Harriet Wasserman's secretary a few short stories and 50 pages of an unfinished novel. Wasserman read them, called the writer and said, "I want you to give...

Winners and finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prizes. Pulitzer juries make up to three recommendations in each category without listing them in order of preference. The Pulitzer Board, which awards the prizes, is not limited to those recommendations in choosing a winner.JOURNALISM:PUBLIC SERVICE _ The...

An American editor, Smith is the author of the 1990 Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931–1940. In the following essay, based in part on conversations with McDermott, she provides an overview of McDermott's career as well as her insights into the writing process.

Leavitt is an American novelist and short story writer. In the review below, he asserts that the "baroque richness of Ms. McDermott's sentences, the intellectual complexity of her moral vision, and the explicit emotion of her voice" distinguish That Night from other novels treating similar themes and incorporating suburban settings.

In the following review, Pool praises McDermott's vivid depiction of family closeness and the mounting emotional power of her narrative in At Weddings and Wakes as well as the novel's inherent realism.