At Weddings and Wakes A Novel

The three children of an Irish-American family in Long Island are witnesses to the cycles of dissatisfaction, bitterness and recurring affection that make up the lives of their extended family. A tender, sad and funny book from the author of the National Book Award-nominated That Night and Charming Billy

"As rendered through Ms. McDermott's rich, supple prose, and infused with her quiet emotional wisdom, the story of these three children and their family assumes a kind of mythic resonance: it becomes a parable about all families and all families' encounters with love, mortality, and sorrow."--The New York Times "A brilliant, highly complex, extraordinary piece of fiction and a triumph for its author."--Chicago Tribune "McDermott's novels can't be relegated to plot or thematic conceit.  It is the sweep of her sentences, many of them as luxurious and sure of themselves as a cat stretching in the sun.  And it is the remarkable microscopic attention to humanity--the private gestures and telltale routines that make us who we are."--The Boston Sunday Globe