What About the Baby?

March 1, 2021

National Book Award winner McDermott collects essays and lectures to chronicle her life as a writer, summed up thus: "Artistic inspiration, religious faith, does not come to most of us with the beating of wings or the leaping of flames or the cinematic, middle-of-the-night aha moment that cuts to an acceptance speech in Stockholm.... It is the work of a lifetime."

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March 22, 2021
With style and wit, novelist McDermott (The Ninth Hour) offers a master class on writing fiction, “a continual source of surprise and delight.” Generously peppered with examples by such authors as Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, and Virginia Woolf, McDermott dissects what makes a story worth reading (and rereading). In “Story,” she cites Woolf’s novel Jacob’s Room and covers the magic of a strong opening paragraph and first sentence, the “Now what?” moment in the narrative’s middle, and the importance of an ending that “says something about us.” The title essay reminds writers that they must clear their “workroom of preformed ideas, especially ideas born of anger or fear.” In “All Drama Is Family Drama,” she opines about the need for exposition, which “makes drama.” McDermott is clear-eyed about her profession, recounting teachers who told her that if she can do anything else, she should, but she has “never shake the addictive delight of seeing my words evoke a world.” Her love of fiction and its craft is apparent, and her advice is at once encouraging and direct: “I expect a lot of fiction—of mine and yours and everybody else’s.” Within these pages, there is room at the table for all. Agency: Gernert Company.

June 15, 2021
A master class in fiction writing, taught by a National Book Award winner. Fans of McDermott's fiction should flock to this sprightly collection, which demonstrates that the author expects "a lot" from the craft. The first of 14 essays lays it on the line. Drawing on passages from fellow writers Mark Helprin, Philip Roth, and Eudora Welty, among others, McDermott writes that she's always looking for "solace in art." In addition, she looks for pain and the sweetness of life; authentic, memorable characters; and well-crafted sentences; but ultimately, "I expect fiction to seek to make sense of life and death--yours, mine, and everybody else's." High standards, indeed. McDermott ponders the importance of openings--"how many ways can a story seduce you into reading it"--as well as the necessity of a "hint of magic" and a "surge of joy" and how a satisfying ending casts us back to the beginning. Throughout, she draws on personal stories and numerous quotes from writers she admires. After exploring the nuts and bolts of what makes a good sentence, she delivers a healthy dose of Nabokov. McDermott's simplest advice for fledging novelists is "for God's sake, read what you've already written" to see how everything connects. She writes about telling a bunch of groaning third graders that "to be a writer was to have homework due for the rest of your life." When suffering writer's block, "sometimes nothing short of starting over will do." In "Faith and Literature," McDermott explores what it means to be a Catholic writer. Later, she offers a quick piece of priceless advice: "no inanimate object...in a story or a novel is arbitrary." She tells her students, "Embrace the astonishing reality of a vivid world, a created world, formed only of words on a page. It's a gift." Set aside those bulky how-to handbooks for this healthy balm of common-sense wisdom, inspiration, and encouragement.

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August 1, 2021
The first essay collection by master novelist and longtime writing teacher McDermott (The Ninth Hour, 2017), spiked with exacting observations and shrewdly amusing anecdotes about the mysterious and arduous art of fiction, forms an edgy ars poetica. As she offers a consummate, fresh, and delving look at why we crave fiction, what fiction does for us, and why we keep creating and critiquing it, McDermott is as forthright about "moral vision" as she is about the importance of first sentences and how a commitment to writing fiction can feel like a life sentence. At once assertive and subtle, rigorous and funny, McDermott builds her mind-revving arguments on passages by the likes of George Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, Toni Morrison, and James Joyce and advises aspiring fiction writers to read poetry. She examines her fascination with death, questions of faith and creativity, and fiction's "shimmer of magic." Exceptionally knowledgeable and passionate, prickly and witty, utterly committed and quite frank about how every novel-in-progress is a "shipwreck," McDermott recalculates and reinvigorates our appreciation for the high demands and deep resonance of fiction at its most profound.

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