First published 1997
Billy Lynch has died from decades of drinking, and his Irish American community gathers for the funeral meal. Over roast beef and green bean amandine, family and friends share stories about the man who held them all together. They remember his charm, his pain, and the love affair with Eva that broke his heart years ago. As the mourners talk, a portrait emerges of a man who never recovered from losing his first love. The conversations reveal how Billy's alcoholism touched everyone around him, yet they also show the deep bonds that sustained this tight knit group through loss and disappointment. McDermott won the National Book Award for this exploration of how people carry each other through life's hardest moments. The novel shows how love persists even when people cannot save each other from their own destruction.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: grief, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Ireland
Period: 20th-century
280 pages · Hardcover · Farrar Straus Giroux
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse