That night when he came to claim her, he stood on the short lawn before her house, his knees bent, his fists driven into his thighs, and bellowed her name with such passion that even the friends who surrounded him, who had come to support him, to drag her from the house, to murder her family if they had to, let the chains they carried go limp in their hands. Even the men from our neighborhood, in Bermuda shorts or chinos, white T-shirts and gray suit pants, with baseball bats and snow shovels held before them like rifles, even they paused in their rush to protect her: the good and the bad--the black-jacketed boys and the fathers in their light summer clothes--startled for that one moment before the fighting began by the terrible, piercing sound of his call.
This is serious, my own father remembered thinking at that moment. This is insane.
I remember only that my ten-year-old heart was stopped by the beauty of it all.
Sheryl was her name, but he cried, "Sherry," drawing out the word, keening it, his voice both strong and desperate. There was a history of dark nights in the sound, something lovely, something dangerous.
One of the children had already begun to cry.....
-Alice McDermott's opening recalls "The Iliad," and that's pretty gutsy, given that we're talking about a quiet suburb in the sixties. McDermott is saying that she wants to locate epic and tragic qualities in seemingly mundane and small lives. (She would do this again in "Someone.") Coming to "claim" Sherry, like a certain warrior claiming Helen of Troy, the unnamed central male teenager causes a ruckus. The narrator--ten years old--has some strange, half-articulated thoughts about sex. Substituting "Sherry" for "Sheryl": That seems sexual. "A history of dark nights" in the sound of the teen's voice: The narrator understands that there's something carnal, both alluring and dangerous, in that voice.
-Another part of the fun: It's unclear whom the child "identifies" with. We might think she is cheering for her father, but doesn't the convention of parallel structure suggest that the *teens* are the good guys? "The good and the bad--the black-jacketed boys and the fathers in their light summer clothes--startled for that one moment...."
-Clashing armies. All the grown men are recalled as having been in "white T-shirts"; the teens are in "black jackets." The suburbs must become Troy: Instead of spears, snow shovels and baseball bats play the role of weaponry. Is the conflict a terrible thing? Maybe, but, of course, a ten-year-old is stunned by "the beauty of it all." Something is shifting. "Some Enchanted Evening" is no longer at the top of the charts; it's time for the Beatles.
-I've always loved this opening, because I can't think of many other people who would notice the difference between "Sherry" and "Sheryl," and its sexual implications; I can't think of many other people who would start a novel at this moment, the eye of a storm, a teen's screaming out a name right before a looming snow-shovel war. And it's hard to think of other writers who have such a gift for idiosyncratic sentences: Notice the strange, winding quality of the first observations, followed by the punchy declaration, "This is insane." McDermott writes with such a sense of momentum, and she seems to spot spiritual undercurrents everywhere, in areas that others would overlook. Alice is my Queen of St. Patrick's Day--my preferred reading at this time of year!
This is serious, my own father remembered thinking at that moment. This is insane.
I remember only that my ten-year-old heart was stopped by the beauty of it all.
Sheryl was her name, but he cried, "Sherry," drawing out the word, keening it, his voice both strong and desperate. There was a history of dark nights in the sound, something lovely, something dangerous.
One of the children had already begun to cry.....
-Alice McDermott's opening recalls "The Iliad," and that's pretty gutsy, given that we're talking about a quiet suburb in the sixties. McDermott is saying that she wants to locate epic and tragic qualities in seemingly mundane and small lives. (She would do this again in "Someone.") Coming to "claim" Sherry, like a certain warrior claiming Helen of Troy, the unnamed central male teenager causes a ruckus. The narrator--ten years old--has some strange, half-articulated thoughts about sex. Substituting "Sherry" for "Sheryl": That seems sexual. "A history of dark nights" in the sound of the teen's voice: The narrator understands that there's something carnal, both alluring and dangerous, in that voice.
-Another part of the fun: It's unclear whom the child "identifies" with. We might think she is cheering for her father, but doesn't the convention of parallel structure suggest that the *teens* are the good guys? "The good and the bad--the black-jacketed boys and the fathers in their light summer clothes--startled for that one moment...."
-Clashing armies. All the grown men are recalled as having been in "white T-shirts"; the teens are in "black jackets." The suburbs must become Troy: Instead of spears, snow shovels and baseball bats play the role of weaponry. Is the conflict a terrible thing? Maybe, but, of course, a ten-year-old is stunned by "the beauty of it all." Something is shifting. "Some Enchanted Evening" is no longer at the top of the charts; it's time for the Beatles.
-I've always loved this opening, because I can't think of many other people who would notice the difference between "Sherry" and "Sheryl," and its sexual implications; I can't think of many other people who would start a novel at this moment, the eye of a storm, a teen's screaming out a name right before a looming snow-shovel war. And it's hard to think of other writers who have such a gift for idiosyncratic sentences: Notice the strange, winding quality of the first observations, followed by the punchy declaration, "This is insane." McDermott writes with such a sense of momentum, and she seems to spot spiritual undercurrents everywhere, in areas that others would overlook. Alice is my Queen of St. Patrick's Day--my preferred reading at this time of year!
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