Time is handled in a "This Is Us" fashion: time goes backwards and forwards in At Weddings and Wakes. Time moves through memory and observation and seems incrementally slow. This is the story of what it means to be Irish-American in New York, told from the point of view of Lucy Dailey's school-aged children. Again, I was reminded of "This Is Us." The viewpoints are poignant and sad, tender and true to life. This Is Life. Lucy dutifully brings her children from Long Island to see her sisters and stepmother in Brooklyn. The three generations of family all have a rich bittersweet history to tell. Aunt Veronica needs alcohol to numb her grief. Aunt Agnes is nothing but sharp-tongued and career driven. But, the sweetness and light is found with Aunt May, a former nun in the midst of a romance with mailman.
McDermott is a master at displaying human emotions and behaviors in a way that you swear the characters are in your life; just ghosts who have just passed into another room while you weren't looking.
As an aside, can I just say how much I love the slug scene that appears in the beginning of the book and then returns at the end? ( )

There are so many topics presented in this book, and so many meaningful lines. However, finding much of the information was difficult for many reasons. The book contained many characters, not all named. McDermott's writing provided so much information regarding inner thoughts and the sensual aspects of life. It was definitely worth reading. ( )

Alice McDermott can create a sense of place like almost no one else, and her minutely observed descriptions of people and use of language are head and shoulders above the skills of most writers. Unfortunately, in the case of At Weddings and Wakes, all of that was not enough to overcome what at times felt like a glacial pace and, more important, a terribly awkwardly executed shift in time. The way she handled the fate of one of the main characters was both confusing and, ultimately, took away from the impact of what happened, which is really a shame. ( )

My third Alice McDermott novel and I just love her writing. Very beautiful! ( )

Though I admired some of the writing, I found the book to be poorly constructed overall. I'm an attentive readers, but found myself struggling to differentiate characters, and found the authors seemingly random jumps back and forth in time, and in voice, to be further disorienting. ( )