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Title: Once you get over the hurdle...
Review: Ms. McDermott writes beautiful prose. She knows how to capture a character at a vulnerable moment; and this is reason enough to read all the way through. Having said that, the clinically terminal problem with this skimpy book is that its central premise is patently unbelievable! Thirty years and we're supposed to believe that no one--not even the Irish relatives--give bugwit Billy a clue as to what really happened? Perhaps Ms. McDermott lavishes so much effort on her prose because she knows her plot is idiotic. Add to this gaping defect the author's oh-so-subtle insistence that nothing makes any difference in life anyway (so, why not be stupid??) and you find Ms. McDermott's book is a cheat in the end, and rather a cowardly one. So many better authors and stories affirm the opposite, i.e, William Trevor, Maeve Bunchy, Alice Munroe. Here's hoping the author got this nonsense out of her system and will deliver something major soon.
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