What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction

by Alice McDermott

Overview

A collection of essays, lectures, and observations on the art of writing fiction from Alice McDermott, winner of the National Book Award and unmatched "virtuoso of language and image" (Rebecca Steinitz, The Boston Globe).

Laying bare the intricate process of storytelling, McDermott shares her invaluable advice on the subtleties of writing, blending the practical with the profound in What About the Baby?

McDermott also serves throughout as the artful conductor of a literary chorus, quoting generously from the work of other great writers (including Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Nabokov, Morrison, and Woolf ), beautifully joining her voice with theirs. These stories of lessons learned and books read, and of the terrors and the joys of what she calls “this mad pursuit,” form a rich and valuable sourcebook for readers and writers alike: a deeply charming meditation on the unique gift that is literature.

Enshrouded in a layer of wisdom, humor, and an undying passion for literature, What About the Baby? is an engaging exploration of the art of literary creation. This book’s insightful narrative is a not-to-be-missed journey for anyone enticed by the magic of the written word.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250849229
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	08/16/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	214,661
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Alice McDermott is the author of several novels, including The Ninth Hour; Someone; 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. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and elsewhere. For more than two decades she was the Richard A. Macksey Professor of 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.

Hometown:

Bethesda, Maryland

Date of Birth:

June 27, 1953

Place of Birth:

Brooklyn, New York

Education:

B.A., State University of New York-Oswego, 1975; M.A., University of New Hampshire, 1978

Table of Contents

Foreword: Alice McDermott Speaks in Italics Tony Earley ix

What I Expect 3

Story 23

Sentencing 41

What About the Baby? 67

Mary McCarthy 83

Only Connect (Eventually) 87

William Rehnquist, Robinson Crusoe, Rabbit Ears, and Something About Passion: Advice from Me to Me 113

An Unreasonable Degree of Sympathy 135

Starting Over 141

Coaching 155

Faith and Literature 169

All Drama Is Family Drama 189

Voice-overs 191

Things 207

Remembrance of Things That Never Happened: The Art of Memoir, the Art of Fiction 213

Finally 235

Acknowledgments 239

Editorial Reviews

Praise for What About the Baby?

"Fans of McDermott’s fiction should flock to this sprightly collection, which demonstrates that the author expects “a lot” from the craft . . . Set aside those bulky how-to handbooks for this healthy balm of common-sense wisdom, inspiration, and encouragement." —Kirkus Reviews

"With style and wit, novelist McDermott (The Ninth Hour) offers a master class on writing fiction . . . Her love of fiction and its craft is apparent, and her advice is at once encouraging and direct: “I expect a lot of fiction—of mine and yours and everybody else’s.” Within these pages, there is room at the table for all." —Publishers Weekly

"[T]his collection offers a tender but still often pragmatic set of reflections on writing. Most of all, it is a welcoming and warmhearted exploration of what it means to write (and re-write) when one finds one can do nothing else." —Shelf Awareness

Praise for Alice McDermott

“McDermott is a poet of corporeal description . . . it's the way she marries the spirit to the physical world that makes her work transcendent.” —Sarah Begley, Time

"McDermott manages to write lyrically in plain language, she is able to find the drama in uninflected experience.” —Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times

“That’s the spectacular power of McDermott’s writing: Without ever putting on literary airs, she reveals to us what’s distinct about characters who don’t have the ego or eloquence to make a case for themselves as being anything special.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR

“Vivid and arresting . . . Marvelously evocative.” —Mary Gordon, The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

03/22/2021

With style and wit, novelist McDermott (The Ninth Hour) offers a master class on writing fiction, “a continual source of surprise and delight.” Generously peppered with examples by such authors as Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, and Virginia Woolf, McDermott dissects what makes a story worth reading (and rereading). In “Story,” she cites Woolf’s novel Jacob’s Room and covers the magic of a strong opening paragraph and first sentence, the “Now what?” moment in the narrative’s middle, and the importance of an ending that “says something about us.” The title essay reminds writers that they must clear their “workroom of preformed ideas, especially ideas born of anger or fear.” In “All Drama Is Family Drama,” she opines about the need for exposition, which “makes drama.” McDermott is clear-eyed about her profession, recounting teachers who told her that if she can do anything else, she should, but she has “never shake the addictive delight of seeing my words evoke a world.” Her love of fiction and its craft is apparent, and her advice is at once encouraging and direct: “I expect a lot of fiction—of mine and yours and everybody else’s.” Within these pages, there is room at the table for all. Agency: Gernert Company. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

03/01/2021

National Book Award winner McDermott collects essays and lectures to chronicle her life as a writer, summed up thus: "Artistic inspiration, religious faith, does not come to most of us with the beating of wings or the leaping of flames or the cinematic, middle-of-the-night aha moment that cuts to an acceptance speech in Stockholm…. It is the work of a lifetime."

Library Journal

2021-06-02
A master class in fiction writing, taught by a National Book Award winner.

Fans of McDermott’s fiction should flock to this sprightly collection, which demonstrates that the author expects “a lot” from the craft. The first of 14 essays lays it on the line. Drawing on passages from fellow writers Mark Helprin, Philip Roth, and Eudora Welty, among others, McDermott writes that she’s always looking for “solace in art.” In addition, she looks for pain and the sweetness of life; authentic, memorable characters; and well-crafted sentences; but ultimately, “I expect fiction to seek to make sense of life and death—yours, mine, and everybody else’s.” High standards, indeed. McDermott ponders the importance of openings—“how many ways can a story seduce you into reading it”—as well as the necessity of a “hint of magic” and a “surge of joy” and how a satisfying ending casts us back to the beginning. Throughout, she draws on personal stories and numerous quotes from writers she admires. After exploring the nuts and bolts of what makes a good sentence, she delivers a healthy dose of Nabokov. McDermott’s simplest advice for fledging novelists is “for God’s sake, read what you’ve already written” to see how everything connects. She writes about telling a bunch of groaning third graders that “to be a writer was to have homework due for the rest of your life.” When suffering writer’s block, “sometimes nothing short of starting over will do.” In “Faith and Literature,” McDermott explores what it means to be a Catholic writer. Later, she offers a quick piece of priceless advice: “no inanimate object…in a story or a novel is arbitrary.” She tells her students, “Embrace the astonishing reality of a vivid world, a created world, formed only of words on a page. It’s a gift.”

Set aside those bulky how-to handbooks for this healthy balm of common-sense wisdom, inspiration, and encouragement.

Kirkus Reviews