Charming Billy

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways.

Those at the wake also reminisce about the Irish girl. This is dispositive of just how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelines so often that, at times, it is a bit confusing and has a somewhat jarring effect. Despite the book's torpor, however, there are those who may enjoy its foray into the lower middle class lifestyle of a tightly knit group of Irish Americans.

The narrator of Charming Billy is a cousin-once-removed of the protagonist, the daughter of Billy's best friend, Dennis, and probably the author's alter ego. Although intelligent and perceptive, the narrator is also rather critical of the pride, prejudice, sexism, racism, faith and clannish behavior she observes in her elders.

Charming Billy is a wonderful story of second and third-generation Irish-Americans, most of whom are blood relatives and live and love and laugh and drink and work for Consolidated Edison in the Queens borough of New York City. In the hands of a lesser author, a book such as Charming Billy might be one in which we would soon lose interest, but McDermott, a wonderful writer, brings Billy to life as well as illuminating the lives of this tightly-knit Irish-American community.

The opening scene, in a restaurant following Billy's funeral, is a brilliant social satire reminiscent of James T. Farrell's stories about Irish-Americans in Chicago, Can All This Grandeur Perish, written in 1937. McDermott, however, is less scathing, more sentimental and humorous, than was Farrell.

The characters in Charming Billy are warmly and well-drawn. They all have names like Dennis and Danny and Kevin and Rosemary and Bridie and Maeve. They are patriotic Americans, to be sure, but still proud of their Irish heritage and some of them even speak with a brogue. Part of the value of this warm and wonderful novel lies in the concern and respect with which McDermott treats past and current Irish-American issues.

McDermott writes in prose so masterful that we can almost hear the delightful Irish lilt in the voices of the speakers. There is a beautifully rhythmic cadence that captures the ebb and flow of conversation perfectly and one that never fails to involve the reader on an intensely emotional level. At the post-funeral dinner, Billy's sister takes the pragmatic view that "Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids nor not...Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same." Billy's bachelor friend and drinking partner, Dan Lynch, defends Billy, taking a more romantic view of Billy's life: "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed...But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate."

Why did Billy Lynch's life turn out so miserably? Why did this charming and lovable man "die of drink?" That is the central mystery, the question on which this novel of personal revelation turns. As the narrator tries to make sense of Billy's life, she finds herself also investigating both her father's life and her own as well. As she uncovers first one fact and then another, the mystery of "why" and "why not" only deepens.

It cannot be denied that Billy Lynch was a man seduced by the bar. "A world where love...could be spoken of by a hand on the shoulder, a fresh drink placed on the bar, Good to see you, through welling tears, real ones now, Ah, Billy, it's always good to see you. Dark, sparkling, sprinkled with moments when the sound and smell and sight of the place...transported him, however briefly, to a summer night long ago when he was young and life was all promise."

Any sensitive reader will find Charming Billy a wonderful investigation into the motivations and mysteries of life and love as written by one of the best authors of the twentieth century.

What is at the core of his problem? Only that when Billy was young, he fell in love with an Irish girl named Eva who returned to Ireland. He planned to marry her and sent her five hundred dollars to pay for her return trip back to the states. Instead, she stayed in Ireland, married someone else, and used Billy's money to better her personal circumstances. When Billy's cousin found out the truth, he made the momentous decision of telling Billy that Eva had died, so as to spare his feelings.

His cousin's decision to tell this falsehood, turned out to be a life defining moment for Billy. He eventually entered into a loveless, sterile marriage, worked two jobs, and drank himself into a stupor just about every chance he got. After his premature death, everyone at the wake reminisces about Billy. These other characters, in general, lead dismal, insular lives, and none seem to have any redeeming grace about them. They are as pathetic as Billy in their own ways. They also reminisce about the Irish girl.

This is dispositive of how empty a life Billy led that a summer romance of his from some thirty years prior would be rehashed ad nauseum. Quite frankly, there is not all that much to say about this sad sack of a man. What is said is often repetitious and trite. To compound the problem, the book shifts timelinnes so often that it has a somewhat jarring effect. This contrivance serves only to confuse and frustrate the reader. All in all, there are far better books out there on which to spend one's time and money.