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Book of the Summer (Non-fiction)

 Alice McDermott could be the greatest living storyteller in America, though she doesn't take on the flashy subjects (Marilyn Monroe, Dahmer, Chappaquiddick) that seem to speak to Joyce Carol Oates.


McDermott's career is legendary. The second novel was a Pulitzer finalist; the third was a Pulitzer finalist. The fourth won the National Book Award, beating Tom Wolfe's buzzy "A Man in Full." Another Pulitzer finalist followed. A late-career novel almost won a (second) National Book Award. The most recent novel won the Prix Femina etranger.

McDermott doesn't feel optimistic about literary fiction. She seems to think that novel-writing will become an example of "traditional folk art," like bagpipe-playing. She sees serial killers taking over all fictional terrain; she sees fiction writers relying strictly on sight and sound, as if already envisioning future movie scripts. Well? You might as well be the greatest bagpipe-player you can be, if you have that "bug."

Now, McDermott has a book of essays about fiction, "What About the Baby," and the essays are sensational. They are the product of a lifetime of thinking. They cover sentence-making, exposition, starting over, using objects in a story, and making a plot, among other things. The essays have these gems (and more):

*Use smell in your writing. Baz Luhrmann can't "give smell" to a viewer. But you can invoke the nose, in a novel or collection of short stories. And smell is powerful.

*Go back and read what came earlier. McDermott describes an experience with Shakespeare's "Henry" plays. Hal "lifts" the crown too soon from his father, Henry; Henry isn't actually dead yet. When caught in the act, Hal invents a crazy self-serving lie to "explain" his behavior. If you go back earlier in the text, you see Falstaff doing the same thing repeatedly to Hal. And what you notice is that Hal has *learned* his false-narrative tic from Falstaff. As a writer, you can plant these seeds if you're well aware of yesterday's work, and last week's work--if you're continuously adjusting "what came before."

*Let's say you're narrating in the past tense, and you need to travel even deeper into the past (for a bit). Your HADs can--and should--disappear quickly. "Jane recalled her trip to the candy store. It had occurred on a Tuesday. The smell of chocolate drifted through the open door....." NOT "had drifted....." If you lean on "had" too much, you're soon in "had had developed" territory. "He had had constructed two new bridges...." You don't want to be on that terrain.

I could eat this stuff for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Thanks to McDermott, also, for directing me to Joshua Henkin's "Morningside Heights," a terrific novel from mid-COVID Days. The novel concerns a Columbia U family; the real subject is marriage. I loved it. And I love McDermott's book.
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