The Ninth Hour: A Novel [B0618]

2017 HCDJ 1st edition in nice clean condition. A magnificent novel from one of America's finest writers-a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century, of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn. This is a portrait of the Irish-American experience, presented through the story of an Irish immigrant's suicide and how it reverberates through innumerable lives in early twentieth-century Catholic Brooklyn.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Loved it! This is an amazing book if you like generational, character-driven books. Beautifully written prose, yet to the point, within an Irish Catholic family, and the secrets that are kept -most, or all, with good intent."; "I loved the character development in this novel. Being a life-long Catholic myself, I appreciated the humanity with which Alice McDermott portrayed the nursing sisters. I found the story to be realistic, having heard many tales from my own parents of what it was like to live in the early to mid-1900s: restrictions on women's roles, the difficulties in finding meaningful employment, the mystical aura around the Catholic Church and conversely, the reality with which many in the Church actually followed their vocation. The novel comes to a very surprising conclusion."; "I enjoyed this one. Reminiscent of Call the Midwife, but with more dramatic flair."