Go Read's pick is in, and it's…Alice McDermott's 'Charming Billy'
Ray McAllister/Richmond Times-Dispatch Columnist
May 5, 2005

'Charming Billy," Alice McDermott's 1998 National Book Award-winning novel about a captivating Irish-American alcoholic and his effect on those around him, has been chosen for Go Read's fourth-annual community reading program.

The selection is being announced this morning on the Go Read Web site and also at the Junior League's 60th annual Book and Author Dinner tonight.

"This is big, it's Richmond, [and] it's nice to have a book that's been out there a while and let people be reminded it's there," McDermott said yesterday morning from her home in Maryland.

Go Read programs will be held in libraries, schools and book-discussion groups throughout the fall.

McDermott will follow with a visit to Richmond on Dec. 1.

The Go Read program, started by community leaders after the idea was advanced in a column here, previously selected "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest J. Gaines (2002), "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien (2003) and the controversial "White People" by Allan Gurganus (2004), a collection of short stories. Its title and even the subject matter of some stories caused many school groups to read "White People" only in part. The Times-Dispatch, which maintains the Go Read Web site, did not refer to the title in advertising promoting the program that year.

Praise for "Charming Billy," the fourth of McDermott's five novels, has been effusive:

The New York Times Book Review: "Eloquent ... heartbreaking ... McDermott is brilliant."

USA Today: "This is fiction as good as it gets."

The Miami Herald: "Mesmerizing, perfectly pitched. ... Charming Billy deserves at least two readings: one to consider why Billy's faith is so appealing despite the wreckage of his life, and one for the pure pleasure of McDermott's words."

McDermott, now writer in residence at Johns Hopkins University, said yesterday that in essence she had avoided writing about Billy Lynch. Go Read's pick is in, and it's…Alice McDermott's 'Charming Billy'

"'At Weddings and Wakes' [was] sort of the first, and I thought the only novel, I would write dealing with the Irish-American community," said McDermott, whose grandparents were born in Ireland.

"[But] slowly it began to dawn on me there was one stereotype that hadn't shown up. Probably he didn't show up because the loveable drunk is a stereotype. ... But the minute you think that's something you should never write about, the iconoclast in you wants to write about him."

Easier said than done.

"Can you base a novel around somebody who's a stereotype and who's been done before? Can you make it unique and like no one else?" McDermott asked. "That was the challenge, to make an authentic life. ...

"As the novel developed, I began to realize it's not Billy's story alone, it's the story of people who loved him and made his life possible."

McDermott will conclude the Go Read program with Dec. 1 visits to a high school to speak with area students and to St. Paul's Episcopal Church for a community reading in the evening.

Ray's column runss Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Call him at (804) 649-6333; fax (804) 775-8059; or e-mail rmcallister@timesdispatch.com