The book starts out with family members gathering together at a pub in the Bronx for the wake (they are Irish-American) of Billy Lynch. Yes, the charming Billy of the title is dead. He's left behind his wife Maeve, no children, but a slew of other family members. Maeve is holding up and even has a drink to toast her husband...which is noticeable since Maeve doesn't normally drink and since Billy died from alcoholism. And of course, as all big families do...gossip abounds. The main topic, of course, is the Irish girl Billy loved back after the War and whom he was going to bring to America and marry. And how she died before he could bring her over and how that affected his life.

So the story flips back and forth between the present day of Billy's funeral and the past. It's narrated by the daughter of Billy's cousin Dennis. And snippets of other family's members past events are thrown in.

Honestly, this book is really hard to review because it's really about a single plot. Instead, it just revolves around the life, love, and relationships of Billy's family. And it works because I was just absorbed by the story and the writing. And this is really impressive since there really is no single plot.

And I really liked all the characters, especially charming Billy. This book because it offers an honest and beautifully written glimpse into the life of Billy Lynch and his family. ( )

First of all, Billy's family and friends have gathered in a Bronx bar for the first 24 pages of the book - thats it! Then they go to the widow's house for a few chapters, and the rest of it is a bunch of flashbacks. Secondly - Billy was a romantic? A romantic? Billy was a lousy drunk whose family continually tried to get help for him which he threw back in their face.

The majority of this story is told from the point of view of Billy's cousin Dennis' daughter, whom is never named, as she is relaying what happened at the funeral to her husband. I think. Since Dennis' daughter is the one telling the story, Dennis is involved in most parts making me think the title of this book should have been Patient Dennis.

The book really isn't that long, but I felt like it was taking me forever to read! Especially the parts narrated from Billy's widow, Maeve's house. To me it felt like there was a severe lack of emotion that you would expect to be there during a funeral. McDermott drops a bomb in the beginning of the story regarding Billy's first love, Eva, that just doesn't seem very realistic - maybe because I figured it out all on my own? The whole thing made Billy seem pathetic (more than I already thought he was). I didn't find any of the characters particularly likable in this novel, except for Dennis, throughout the years Maeve had called Dennis every time (almost every night) that Billy was too drunk to handle - making both her and Billy seem irresponsible and childish. While Dennis was saintly enough to come over and help, he was really a catalyst in Billy's drinking because of it.

The bright side of this story for me was that Maeve and Billy lived in Bayside, Queens - where I live! But that was it. McDermott didn't give any details about any of the locations on Long Island or Queens that would make you think she had ever even visited the area. Don't get me wrong this wasn't the most horrible book I have ever ready, but I don't feel any better for reading it, thats for sure. ( )

Billy's death sets off an avalanche of reminisces related by those who knew him and retold by his cousin's daughter. McDermott weaves past and present into an intergenerational mythology in which Billy, despite his ultimately failing battle with alcoholism, is one of the heroes. Like so many families, Billy's has had a complicated relationship with alcohol and with his alcoholism, and even as they remember his better qualities, his relatives all struggle with their role as enablers in it. McDermott does an excellent job of mimicking the faint haze of memory that drapes itself on family stories passed down from generation to generation, and the result is a beautiful, strange, sad, compelling little novel. ( )

Absolutely lovely. Elegiac without being maudlin or sappy, it is a quiet reflection on a man's lifetime addiction to alcohol, and its effects on his family and friends. I love Alice McDermott -- like another of my much loved authors, Alice Munro, she has a gift for drawing characters that are real, and instantly recognizable. And though her themes are deeply personal, dealing mostly with family and relationships, she is stubbornly anti-sentimental. ( )

Ah, no one tells a story like the Irish. Billy is a drunk, Billy is a fatalist, Billy is a realist, Billy is charming. His cousin’s daughter tells the story of Billy, learned mostly through her father, of Billy’s lost love and his life’s frustration. Once again, there’s little bitterness (but there is a wee bit), and much seat-of-the-pants philosophizing. ( )