That Night - by Alice McDermott (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In That Night, New York Times bestselling author Alice McDermott, "has taken a suburban teenage romance and pregnancy and infused it with the power, the ominousness, and the star-crossed romanticism of a contemporary Romeo and Juliet" (Chicago Tribune)

A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

It is high summer, the early 1960s. Sheryl and Rick, two Long Island teenagers, share an intense, all-consuming love. But Sheryl's widowed mother steps between them, and one moonlit night Rick and a gang of hoodlums descend upon her quiet neighborhood.

That night, driven by Rick's determination to reclaim Sheryl, the young men provoke a violent confrontation, and as fathers step forward to protect their turf, notions of innocence belonging to both sides of the brawl are fractured forever.

Alice McDermott's That Night "is as carefully constructed as a poem, giving off a lustrous glow, and is poignant in the telling" (People).

Review Quotes

"At once mythic and personal---a novel that possesses the ability to make us remember our own youth and all that has vanished since." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A strong, eloquent novel...McDermott writes clean, simple prose that serves her story beautifully. This novel is as carefully constructed as a poem, giving off a lustrous glow, and is poignant in the telling." --People

"Voiced with musical economy...the author's perceptions of suburban life have a rich detail of the quality of a Cheever or an Updike." --Los Angeles Times

"McDermott is a spellbinder, adding a cachet of mystery and eloquence to common occurrences....She has taken a suburban teenage romance and pregnancy and infused it with the power, the ominousness, and the star-crossed romanticism of a contemporary Romeo and Juliet." --Chicago Tribune

"To enter the world of this incantatory novel is to palpably recall almost against one's will the rash, embattled strivings and disillusionments of first love." --The Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Alice McDermott is the author of several novels, including The Ninth Hour; Someone; After This; Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award; At Weddings and Wakes; and That Night--all published by FSG. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and other publications. For more than two decades she was the Richard A. Macksey Professor for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the faculty at the Sewanee Writers' Conference. McDermott lives with her family outside Washington, D.C.