Deirdre McNamer
Author of My Russian
7 Works 327 Members 8 Reviews 1 Favorited
About the Author
Includes the name: Deidre Mcnamer
Works by Deirdre McNamer
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Reviews
Aviary by Deirdre McNamer
There were many positive choices of words and metaphors about a group of people and some extras who lived in a retirement community. I did not appreciate all the emphasis on sensing the area, especially smell, which did turn out to be important. The motives of most of the characters were commendable, and corporations were presented with their uncaring, greedy motives. I would have appreciaated more clarity and directness in the writing.
½Flagged
suesbooks | 1 other review | Oct 6, 2023 | This here is a great example of coming across a book randomly, it having no reviews and turning out to be a great read. So good in fact that I have added it to the Favorites collection this year.
First, the setting. A senior apartment complex called Pheasant Run, Montana. Chief characters Cassie, Viola, Leo Uberti, all residents. Herbie, manager. And finally, Lander Maki, chief fire inspector.
This last because once the fire is discovered in Herbie's apartment, nothing is quite right again at Pheasant Run. Maki is an extraordinarily gifted man for his job: with his preternatural sense of smell, we are sure he will uncover the mystery behind this fire. Meanwhile we get to know Cassie, a widow whose only daughter is also dead. Viola, hesitantly typing up her memoirs while being on the brink of uncovering something sinister at Pheasant Run. Leo Uberti, 89, spry and courtly, a gifted oil painter. But is that all he is?
Maki takes his time, employing his own special methods of investigation. The police are also involved very soon, for Herbie has disappeared but so has Viola. Then there's also a wayward teenager named Clayton who takes refuge in the basement storage area to get away from a dangerous school bully; he falls into an uneasy yet nurturing relationship with the perceptive Cassie. Maki's wife Rhonda, who herself has another preternatural ability: that of communicating with animals. And it's not hokum, mind you. Pay special attention to what it is that the cat alerts Rhonda to.
Alas, tragedy occurs. Fourteen months later, having solved the fire mystery at Pheasant Run, we meet Maki again. A small glimmer of hope arises in the very last few wintry pages of this slow-moving delight of a story. Slow-moving like a broad, peaceful, river, I mean. With depth and reflection. Shadows. A wind whipping up unknown currents. I began to wonder if our good author Deirdre McNamer is a poet. She writes with such empathy that I was fully involved in the lives of these elderly, lonely folks; truly saddened with the death that occurs late in the story; fearful for our bullied teenager, undeniably relieved when Cassie helps avert a disaster from occuring in his life.
Such is the power of writing. I'm thrilled to have this author in my library, and very pleased that I'll be able to recommend this undeservedly unknown little gem to like-minded readers. Hurrah for taking chances! (And for being curious enough about a book cover to pick it up in the first place.)… (more)
First, the setting. A senior apartment complex called Pheasant Run, Montana. Chief characters Cassie, Viola, Leo Uberti, all residents. Herbie, manager. And finally, Lander Maki, chief fire inspector.
This last because once the fire is discovered in Herbie's apartment, nothing is quite right again at Pheasant Run. Maki is an extraordinarily gifted man for his job: with his preternatural sense of smell, we are sure he will uncover the mystery behind this fire. Meanwhile we get to know Cassie, a widow whose only daughter is also dead. Viola, hesitantly typing up her memoirs while being on the brink of uncovering something sinister at Pheasant Run. Leo Uberti, 89, spry and courtly, a gifted oil painter. But is that all he is?
Maki takes his time, employing his own special methods of investigation. The police are also involved very soon, for Herbie has disappeared but so has Viola. Then there's also a wayward teenager named Clayton who takes refuge in the basement storage area to get away from a dangerous school bully; he falls into an uneasy yet nurturing relationship with the perceptive Cassie. Maki's wife Rhonda, who herself has another preternatural ability: that of communicating with animals. And it's not hokum, mind you. Pay special attention to what it is that the cat alerts Rhonda to.
Alas, tragedy occurs. Fourteen months later, having solved the fire mystery at Pheasant Run, we meet Maki again. A small glimmer of hope arises in the very last few wintry pages of this slow-moving delight of a story. Slow-moving like a broad, peaceful, river, I mean. With depth and reflection. Shadows. A wind whipping up unknown currents. I began to wonder if our good author Deirdre McNamer is a poet. She writes with such empathy that I was fully involved in the lives of these elderly, lonely folks; truly saddened with the death that occurs late in the story; fearful for our bullied teenager, undeniably relieved when Cassie helps avert a disaster from occuring in his life.
Such is the power of writing. I'm thrilled to have this author in my library, and very pleased that I'll be able to recommend this undeservedly unknown little gem to like-minded readers. Hurrah for taking chances! (And for being curious enough about a book cover to pick it up in the first place.)… (more)
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dmenon90 | 1 other review | Jun 23, 2023 | Deirdre McNamer's RED ROVER is something of a puzzle, but in a good way. Its diverse characters and its time jumps from 1920s Montana to the post-war 1940s and then all the way to present day force you to pay attention, so you can put the various pieces of the story together. Like the jigsaw puzzles that are depicted as popular with the patients of the Missoula rehabilitation center/nursing home where some of the characters end up - and where lives which once touched only tangentially finally intersect, perhaps for the last time.
The story is of two brothers, Neil and Aidan Tierney; one becomes a B-29 pilot flying out of Saipan over Japan, the other an FBI agent sent undercover to Argentina, supposedly to ferret out Nazis. A third man, Roland Taliaferro, who has escaped a hard life in the Butte copper mines to attend college and law school, figures prominently in their lives and stories as a 'good friend' of Aidan, who follows him into the FBI just before the war. Other characters are Opal Mix, an eccentric rural nurse who becomes a town coroner, and Wendell Whitcomb, fatherless and rudderless, who straightens himself out and becomes a newspaper reporter. McNamer skillfully weaves all of these disparate characters into a web of intrigue, betrayals and ruined lives, but she makes you work. She makes you think about how lives really do come together, drift or ricochet apart, and then converge again - all over a period of several eventful decades.
I was riveted by this complex tale. McNamer is an outstanding storyteller. Add her to the growing list of great writers coming out of the modern American West. Highly recommended.… (more)
½The story is of two brothers, Neil and Aidan Tierney; one becomes a B-29 pilot flying out of Saipan over Japan, the other an FBI agent sent undercover to Argentina, supposedly to ferret out Nazis. A third man, Roland Taliaferro, who has escaped a hard life in the Butte copper mines to attend college and law school, figures prominently in their lives and stories as a 'good friend' of Aidan, who follows him into the FBI just before the war. Other characters are Opal Mix, an eccentric rural nurse who becomes a town coroner, and Wendell Whitcomb, fatherless and rudderless, who straightens himself out and becomes a newspaper reporter. McNamer skillfully weaves all of these disparate characters into a web of intrigue, betrayals and ruined lives, but she makes you work. She makes you think about how lives really do come together, drift or ricochet apart, and then converge again - all over a period of several eventful decades.
I was riveted by this complex tale. McNamer is an outstanding storyteller. Add her to the growing list of great writers coming out of the modern American West. Highly recommended.… (more)
Flagged
TimBazzett | 4 other reviews | Dec 22, 2014 | First, no, RED ROVER is not a book about a dog. Deidre McNamer could have chosen a better title for this very moving story.
And whoever chose the cover (or dust jacket) should have picked something less misleading. If they had, I probably would have read this 2007 book sooner. But this picture gives a false impression; RED ROVER begins with two boys riding horses, but it soon moves forward in time and to other Montana locations.
RED ROVER is a mystery. After Aidan Tierney goes to college and law school, he joins the FBI and requests hazardous duty. He is sent as a secret agent to Argentina and returns to the U.S. a very, very sick man. Soon he is dead.
The mystery of RED ROVER is how and why Aidan died, and who is responsible. Was it suicide, an accident, or murder?
So RED ROVER looks at characters who played parts in Aidan’s life. We see some characters beginning when they were children and study characters’ lives before, during, and after World War II. We see events from more than one perspective as the parts of the book take us back and forth in time, right up to 2003 when most characters are in their 80s and 90s.
RED ROVER is a short book, 264 pages. It covers so much time and so many character studies, this could easily be a monstrosity. Many, maybe most, authors would have included details and whole paragraphs that would bore most readers. But RED ROVER’s descriptions and character studies are tight, with no wasted words. So what could have been tedious is, instead, engrossing.
It is also interesting to note that McNamer felt she had to write this . It is based on the story of her uncle, originally meant to be nonfiction.… (more)
And whoever chose the cover (or dust jacket) should have picked something less misleading. If they had, I probably would have read this 2007 book sooner. But this picture gives a false impression; RED ROVER begins with two boys riding horses, but it soon moves forward in time and to other Montana locations.
RED ROVER is a mystery. After Aidan Tierney goes to college and law school, he joins the FBI and requests hazardous duty. He is sent as a secret agent to Argentina and returns to the U.S. a very, very sick man. Soon he is dead.
The mystery of RED ROVER is how and why Aidan died, and who is responsible. Was it suicide, an accident, or murder?
So RED ROVER looks at characters who played parts in Aidan’s life. We see some characters beginning when they were children and study characters’ lives before, during, and after World War II. We see events from more than one perspective as the parts of the book take us back and forth in time, right up to 2003 when most characters are in their 80s and 90s.
RED ROVER is a short book, 264 pages. It covers so much time and so many character studies, this could easily be a monstrosity. Many, maybe most, authors would have included details and whole paragraphs that would bore most readers. But RED ROVER’s descriptions and character studies are tight, with no wasted words. So what could have been tedious is, instead, engrossing.
It is also interesting to note that McNamer felt she had to write this . It is based on the story of her uncle, originally meant to be nonfiction.… (more)
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techeditor | 4 other reviews | Mar 10, 2011 | Awards
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