LONGLIST, 2013 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD. An ordinary life—its sharp pains andunexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion—livedby an ordinary woman: this is the subject ofSomeone, Alice McDermott’s extraordinary return, seven years after the publication ofAfter This.Scattered recollections—of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, oldage—come together in this transformative narrative, stitched into avibrant whole by McDermott’s deft, lyrical voice.Our firstglimpse of Marie is as a child: a girl in glasses waiting on a Brooklynstoop for her beloved father to come home from work. A seeminglyinnocuous encounter with a young woman named Pegeen sets the bittersweettone of this remarkable novel. Pegeen describes herself as an “amadan,”a fool; indeed, soon after her chat with Marie, Pegeen tumbles down herown basement stairs. The magic of McDermott’s novel lies in how itreveals us all as fools for this or that, in one way or another.Marie’sfirst heartbreak and her eventual marriage; her brother’s brief stintas a Catholic priest, subsequent loss of faith, and eventual breakdown;the Second World War; her parents’ deaths; the births and lives ofMarie’s children; the changing world of her Irish-American enclave inBrooklyn—McDermott sketches all of it with sympathy and insight. This isa novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived; a crowningachievement by one of the finest American writers at work today.