A magnificent new 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. On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove–to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his … recently fired him, to his pregnant wife–that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.
In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives–testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.
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Having been down that road with the nuns — first grade through high school — I felt like I was falling into familiar territory when I opened McDermott’s The Ninth Hour. How wrong I was. She weaves a story of heart break and strong character, among the nuns who help and in the main character who needs a lot of help, a newly pregnant, poor widow. The compassion that shines through these characters is real, uplifting and tragic at once. No one wants a flat land for a story, and this one does not disappoint. The journey with these characters enlightens when so much around us today is dark. This book is a treasure, especially for the strength the women portray while it peeks into the psyche of those depressed and in need of love.
In “The Ninth Hour,” Alice McDermott explores Brooklyn of the early 20th century, a place of Catholic intercessions and mental desperation, of compassion and dedication. This is not a fast paced book, but it is a moving tribute to the nuns who helped and the people who lived then. The world of our grandparents is brought to vivid life and made almost tangible in McDermott’s book.
A closely observed story of Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century…full of sacrifice and reconciliation. She is a master.
Having read other works by McDermott, I was excited to read this book. That was then; this is now.
I admit it – I’m a character-driven reader, and I couldn’t have cared less about the characters in this book. It took me over a month to read this novel, and ordinarily, I would have read two-three in the same time span.
Summer hours are fleeting! Don’t waste valuable reading time dragging this anchor around!
Interesting premise but slow moving. I had a hard time getting into the characters.
Alice McDermott is among the best authors writing today…her previous book ‘Charming Billy’ is a masterpiece and ‘The Ninth Hour’ lives up to her standards.
I found this book inspirational and informative. I highly recommend it . There is a great deal of information and research on the works of mercy of the Catholic nuns to the poor and destitute at the turn of the century NYC. I was really moved by it.
This book was very disappointing. Nothing moving and nothing exciting to help move the book along.
Literary fiction at its best, and a wonderful window into an era and a religion about which I’ve had very little experience or none at all. I greatly appreciated the visit.
The Ninth Hour explores the world of an Irish immigrant in Brooklyn, NY, in the early 1900’s, as well as the culture of nuns during that time. Alice McDermott writes another meaningful story of a young woman whose husband commits suicide, leaving her with a baby girl. She is taken under the care of an order of nuns who minister to the sick and poor. We meet several interesting characters against the backdrop of a fascinating time in American history.