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

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)

What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction gathers the bestselling novelist Alice McDermott's pithiest wisdom about her chosen art, acquired over a lifetime as an acclaimed writer and teacher of writing.

From technical advice (“check that your verbs aren't burdened by unnecessary hads and woulds”) to setting the bar (“I expect the fiction I read to carry with it the conviction that it is written with no other incentive than that it must be written”), from the demands of readers (“they'd been given a story with a baby in it, and they damn well wanted that baby accounted for”) to the foibles of public life (“I've never subscribed to the notion that a film adaptation is the final imprimatur for a work of fiction, despite how often I've been told by encouraging friends and strangers, `Maybe they'll make a movie of your novel,' as if I'd been aiming for a screenplay all along but somehow missed the mark and wrote a novel by mistake”), McDermott muses trenchantly and delightfully about the craft of fiction.

She 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

1137427233
What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction

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)

What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction gathers the bestselling novelist Alice McDermott's pithiest wisdom about her chosen art, acquired over a lifetime as an acclaimed writer and teacher of writing.

From technical advice (“check that your verbs aren't burdened by unnecessary hads and woulds”) to setting the bar (“I expect the fiction I read to carry with it the conviction that it is written with no other incentive than that it must be written”), from the demands of readers (“they'd been given a story with a baby in it, and they damn well wanted that baby accounted for”) to the foibles of public life (“I've never subscribed to the notion that a film adaptation is the final imprimatur for a work of fiction, despite how often I've been told by encouraging friends and strangers, `Maybe they'll make a movie of your novel,' as if I'd been aiming for a screenplay all along but somehow missed the mark and wrote a novel by mistake”), McDermott muses trenchantly and delightfully about the craft of fiction.

She 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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

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

by Alice McDermott

Narrated by Angela Dawe

Unabridged — 6 hours, 57 minutes

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

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

by Alice McDermott

Narrated by Angela Dawe

Unabridged — 6 hours, 57 minutes

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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)

What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction gathers the bestselling novelist Alice McDermott's pithiest wisdom about her chosen art, acquired over a lifetime as an acclaimed writer and teacher of writing.

From technical advice (“check that your verbs aren't burdened by unnecessary hads and woulds”) to setting the bar (“I expect the fiction I read to carry with it the conviction that it is written with no other incentive than that it must be written”), from the demands of readers (“they'd been given a story with a baby in it, and they damn well wanted that baby accounted for”) to the foibles of public life (“I've never subscribed to the notion that a film adaptation is the final imprimatur for a work of fiction, despite how often I've been told by encouraging friends and strangers, `Maybe they'll make a movie of your novel,' as if I'd been aiming for a screenplay all along but somehow missed the mark and wrote a novel by mistake”), McDermott muses trenchantly and delightfully about the craft of fiction.

She 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux


Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

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.)

From the Publisher

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

Library Journal

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."

Kirkus Reviews

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.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940173278968
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication date: 08/17/2021
Edition description: Unabridged
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