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Title: Beautifully written BUT no place to go
Review: I give plaudits to Alice McDermott's writing style -- she works hard to describe the feelings, flashbacks, and memories of Dennis' daughter as she reflects on the life and death of the tragicomedic character Billy Lynch. But her prose got bogged down into a journey into somewhere and nowhere. After a while, I got a headache simply trying to figure out just who McDermott was talking about. At the end, the message of the book was unclear -- was it about the need for redemption for a 30-year-old lie? was it about family values? was it about....what? Sorry to say, but this is certainly not one of her best works.
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