child_of_my_heart_mcdermott
2004 Longlist

Child of My Heart

artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

A woman recalls her fifteenth summer with the wry and bittersweet wisdom of hindsight. The beautiful child of older parents, raised on the eastern end of Long Island among the summerhouses of the rich, Theresa is the town’s most sought-after babysitter – cheerful, poised, an effortless storyteller, a wonder with children and animals – but also a solitary soul already attuned to the paradoxes and compromises of adult life. Among her charges this fateful summer is Daisy, her younger cousin, who has left a crowded working-class household in the city to spend a few quiet weeks in this bucolic place, under Theresa’s benevolent eye.
While Theresa copes with the challenge presented by the neighbourhood’s waiflike children, the tumultuous households of her employers, the mysteriously compelling attentions of an aging painter, and Daisy’s fragility of body and spirit, her precocious, tongue-in-cheek sense of order is put to the test as she makes the perilous crossing into adulthood.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Alice
McDermott

Alice McDermott is the author of several novels, including After This; Child of My Heart; Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award; and At Weddings and Wakes, all published by FSG. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This were all finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. McDermott lives with her family outside Washington, D.C.

Alice McDermott is the author of several novels, including After This; Child of My Heart; Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award; and At Weddings and Wakes, all published by FSG. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This were all finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. McDermott lives with her family outside Washington, D.C.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
United States
Original Language
English
Publisher
Farrar
Nominating Library

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