Word: mcdermott
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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AUTHOR: ALICE MCDERMOTT...
...BOTTOM LINE: McDermott secures her reputation as a mesmerizing storyteller...
...GIVES NOTHING AWAY TO REVEAL that near the end of Alice McDermott's lyrical novel At Weddings and Wakes, there is a joyous wedding celebration. The bride, an aging ex-nun, allows herself to be swirled by her staid groom, a mailman who unexpectedly proves a sure-footed dancer. Even Momma, the embittered matriarch of the Irish-American Towne clan, permits herself a few sentimental tears. But when the party ends, Momma reminds the Roman Catholic celebrators that they have been "dancing on graves." Four days later, there will be a fresh grave to dig -- that of May, the autumn...
With her third novel, McDermott secures her reputation as a mesmerizing and innovative storyteller. In the haunted world that she conjures, dead relatives command greater attention than the living. It is a measure of the author's formidable skills that she vividly evokes the misery of Momma Towne and her four stepdaughters without suffocating the reader in their chronic gloom. While the backdrop is one of complaint, cryptic exchanges -- "That again? Are we rehashing that again?" -- are enough to remind us of the women's litany. Their oppressive unhappiness is artfully offset by the vitality of the three youngest Townes...
...leads the crowd of American lenders. The investment firm of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods estimates Citicorp's exposure to debt at $500 million. With a total of $11 billion in American commercial real estate loans on the bank's books, the U.S "impact is significant," says Keefe, Bruyette president James McDermott. "The Olympia & York news is a wake-up call that commercial real estate remains public enemy No. 1 for U.S. banks, especially Citicorp...