The Ninth Hour

A Novel

By: Alice McDermott

Narrated by: Euan Morton

Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

"[Euan Morton's] steady, gentle delivery allows McDermott's elegant prose to shine. It's a quiet story about love and sacrifice that manages to be extremely moving without becoming sentimental or maudlin. Morton's performance similarly brims with emotion but never overflows." (AudioFile magazine)

A magnificent new audiobook from one of America's finest writers - a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn.

On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove - to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife - "that the hours of his life belong to himself alone." In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.

We begin deep inside Catholic Brooklyn, in the early part of the twentieth century. Decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man's brief existence. Yet his suicide, although never spoken of, reverberates through many lives and over the decades testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations.

The characters we meet - from Sally, the unborn baby at the beginning of the audiobook who becomes the center of the story, to the nuns whose personalities we come to know and love, to the neighborhood families with whose lives they are entwined - are all rendered with extraordinary sympathy and McDermott's trademark lucidity and intelligence. Alice McDermott's The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement by one of the premiere writers at work in America today, and the audio edition is truly unforgettable.

©2017 Alice McDermott (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

Glorious

Alice McDermott, you do it every time. Such beauty. Never wanted it to end. I will be listening to Charming Billy next. Read it when it came out but if it is as lovely as The Ninth Hour it will be a gift to myself.

Depressing as hell

Lots of words to not say much. I just don’t get it. Seemed pointless. Would not recommend.

delightful writing

This was my first Alice McDermott novel and I was delightfully surprised. Her writing is wonderful, and the story quite engrossing. I found out about the novel via her interview with Diane Rehm on NPR, which is also very interesting and expands upon the novel with more historical information about the nursing sisters. Part of what drew me to the novel is an interest in the contemplative spiritual life, regardless of type/religion, and here the author does draw us into the inner lives of several Catholic Sisters in a way that is interesting not only from a story perspective but also a theological one--without being heavy handed. I enjoyed it immensely. I did find the narrator to be a detraction however-- the voice used for the Sisters just didn't seem to match the characters, in my opinion, and the narrator's accent went in and out which is distracting.

Not what I expected

I found it hard to finish, none of the characters really captured my imagination. Not a bad book, the prose was descriptive, particularly of the setting.

Excellent in every way!

I Alice McDermott is an masterful writer…. She places you right there…. You see everything happening before your eyes.
Her characters are Are both ordinary and extraordinary. Amazing story simply said.

I Loved it

I wish I were articulate and clever in writing reviews. I am not. Not very often do I take the time to write anything about a book. Usually, I just use stars. But this book gripped me and kept me paying attention throughout. Often, I went back to listen to parts a second time. I wanted to be sure I was getting it all. I keep a list of books to listen to (or read) again. This title is going on that list! I loved it!

McDermott continues to delight.

I have read all of Alice McDermott's novels and each one surpasses her previous works. The character of Sally is complex, a product of her mother's strong work ethic and her exposure to the good Little Sisters of the Poor. Having grown up in a city with their presence, I can attest to their quiet humility and compassion in treating the elderly. Even the characters who were less than central to the story are carefully drawn and intriguing. Wonderful book!

9 long hours

Every word is exquisitely written. It's the waiting for something to happen that I found slightly tedious. Make no mistake, something eventually does happen, but to get there you need to buckle in for a long journey through beautifully crafted scenes of varying lengths and unpredictably shifting points of view.

Rich and character development

I had a very hard time getting into this book based on the decimal set of circumstances in the beginning. I am so glad I stuck with it. The characters in this book will live with me forever. I highly recommend this book.

Haunting

Alice McDermott’s writing is beautiful, the narrator expressed McDermott’s themes so perfectly, nuanced and evocative. Poignant insight into how religion has shaped the lives of her characters. I highly recommend this book!