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A Novel
by Alice McDermott
Book Reviewed by:Rendered with remarkable lucidity and intelligence, Alice McDermott's The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today
On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove - to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife - "that the hours of his life belong to himself alone." In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun, a Little Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.
In Catholic Brooklyn, in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man's brief existence, and yet his suicide, although never spoken of, reverberates through many lives - testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations.
These Short Dark Days
FEBRUARY 3 WAS A DARK AND DANK DAY altogether: cold spitting rain in the morning and a low, steel-gray sky the rest of the afternoon.
At four, Jim convinced his wife to go out to do her shopping before full darkness fell. He closed the door on her with a gentle wave. His hair was thinning and he was missing a canine on the right side, but he was nevertheless a handsome man who, at thirty-two, might still have passed for twenty. Heavy brows and deep-set, dark-lashed eyes that had been making women catch their breath since he was sixteen. Even if he had grown bald and toothless, as he seemed fated to do, the eyes would have served him long into old age.
His overcoat was on the hall tree beside the door. He lifted it and rolled it lengthwise against his thighs. Then he fitted it over the threshold, tucking the cloth of the sleeves and the hem as well as he could into the space beneath the door. Theirs was a railroad flat: kitchen in the back, dining room, living room, ...
Here are some of the comments posted about The Ninth Hour in our legacy forum.
You can see the full discussion here.
Did you find Mrs. Costello to be a sympathetic character or did you merely pity her? How was Sally changed by her death?
Mrs. Costello was not and could not be a sympathetic character. Only by disliking her, once we learn her true personality, can we forgive Mr. Costello, Annie and even Sally and Sister Jeanne. - paulagb
How are Liz's beliefs and the practice of her faith different from Annie's, and how do they make this friendship work? Do you have friendships like this in your life?
I think Liz's beliefs actually personify what the Catholic church preaches (not necessarily practices) in that Liz is faithful and keeps to the traditions but doesn't judge Annie when she develops a relationship with Mr. Costello. Similar to Sr. ... - scgirl
How did the Sisters' religious faith help them when serving the community? Why do you suppose Sally has trouble incorporating this level of faith into her own life?
Sally was raised in the religious community. She did not live “in the world” really so she had no idea what choices might be available to her. The act of choosing convent life was not the same for her as it was for the actual sisters who helped ... - paulagb
How did you feel about the sequence of events leading up to Mrs. Costello's death? How soon did you realize what Sally was planning?
What I felt in the moment was that adult daughters, at some point, most reconcile the mother they know with the woman they have ignored. And so like many of us, Sally had to choose. Did the mother she love deserve mercy? Or, did the mother she ... - valeriem
How did you feel reading about Sally's experience on the train ride to Chicago? How was she changed by the events that occurred there? Could you relate to her revulsion or did you find her response dramatic?
I think losing the money was, perhaps, the thing that changed Sally's heart and mind. After all, she'd seen some moments of people in tough situations and people behaving badly. But money was something she hadn't handled much - it can be a reassuring... - SD Reader
McDermott, a National Book Award winner, excels at the quietly potent story where small moments build into something greater. The Ninth Hour is a novel about grace, family, sacrifice, and duty, how some serve God by serving other people, and how the idea of transcendence makes the earthly world bearable...continued
Full Review
(562 words)
(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
The nuns in The Ninth Hour belong to an order that appears to be similar to the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order with humble beginnings, founded by Sister St. Jeanne Jugan, also known as Sister Mary of the Cross. Jugan was born in Brittany, France in 1792, amid the hardships of the French Revolution, a time when Catholics were being persecuted. Her mother provided her with religious instruction in secret, and Jeanne joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes where she worked as a nurse.
In the winter of 1839, Jeanne had a fortuitous encounter with an ailing elderly woman named Anne Chauvin. Seeing the woman was badly in need of care, Jeanne brought her home to her own apartment, which she shared with two other women. From that day ...
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