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Charming Billy cover art

Charming Billy

Written by: Alice McDermott
Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
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Publisher's Summary

*Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary with a brand new audiobook recording*

*Winner of the 1998 National Book Award for Fiction*

*Program includes a bonus conversation between Alice McDermott and Matthew Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed novel We Are Not Ourselves*

Alice McDermott's striking audiobook, Charming Billy, is a study of the lies that bind and the weight of familial love, of the way good intentions can be as destructive as the truth they were meant to hide.

Billy Lynch's family and friends have gathered to comfort his widow, and to pay their respects to one of the last great romantics. As they trade tales of his famous humor, immense charm, and consuming sorrow, a complex portrait emerges of an enigmatic man, a loyal friend, a beloved husband, an incurable alcoholic.

©1998 Alice McDermott (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

What the critics say

“This is fiction as good as it gets.” —USA Today

“A luminous and affecting novel.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“There's no one like Alice McDermott for catching the ebullient particulars of the Irish-American sensibility…her touch is light as a feather, her perceptions purely accurate.” —Elle

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