1st half of Charming Billy by Alice McDermott

Charlie Spinale

 AP Literature & Composition

7/30/14

“Charming Billy” by Alice McDermott 1^st half prompt: “One of an author’s goals at the beginning of a novel is to fully engage her reader. Select a passage from the first half of “Charming Billy” that you found particularly interesting and explain how you think it contributes to engaging the reader in the novel.”

Charming Billy by Alice McDermott tells the story of Billy, a man who falls in love with a girl named Eva. The story commences by informing the reader of Billy’s death by starting the novel at his funeral party. His friends and family discuss Billy’s life and his struggles with alcohol and his loss of Eva who he never is capable of forgetting. Throughout the first half of the novel the reader sees how McDermott shows the background of Billy’s life and the reasons why he could not let go of Eva. The reader becomes thoroughly engaged by achieving a greater apprehension and image of Billy, who although a drunk, everyone dearly loved.

In the first chapter of the novel the reader is already engaged and left in suspense through McDermott’s evocative imagery and figurative language. These techniques enable McDermott’s readers to keep reading, essentially, hoping to find something in what seemed to be a mystery. Once McDermott reveals Billy and how he died as an alcoholic, the reader has something to endeavor more about. The reader strives to learn more about Billy because he is loved and remembered by everyone leading the reader to think that his story must be quite significant. McDermott also leads the reader into thinking Billy is a different kind of drunk because he is capable of gaining so much love by so many people and is never described as ruthless or discourteous. The scene at the funeral party allows the reader to become utterly engaged when the reader sees Billy’s family and friends discuss his character and everything they loved and still cherish about him even after his death. One of which was his letters which he wrote to his loved ones. One of these letters was kept by Billy’s friend Bridie, who reveals a letter she kept in her purse:

“'I have one,'” Bridie from the old neighborhood said. She dug into her patent-leather purse and found a greeting-card-sized envelope with two stamps that showed a harp and a fiddle. She looked at the postmark—June 1975—and then extracted a limp paper square of a cocktail napkin that contained Billy’s looping hand” (9, McDermott).

“The napkin was circulated, held as delicately as a fledgling, some even reaching into a purse or a breast pocket for reading glasses so as not to miss a word. All the way up the table to Maeve, who read it with a smile and a nod, and all the way back down again. Bridie took it back and read it once more before placing it into its envelope and back into a side, zippered compartment of her Sunday pocketbook” (9).

“Other letters from Billy were being mentioned: a note scribbled on a Playbill page, on a business card. The long missives he’d sent home during the war, whole lines blacked out by the censors but the homesickness coming through. He was so homesick. The postcards from the Irish trip, the place mats and napkins from various Long Island restaurants and diners, that summer he and Dennis were out there, fixing up Mr. Holtzman’s little house. You remember Mr. Holtzman. Dennis’s mother’s second husband. The shoe-store man” (9-10).

            The passage starts with Bridie, one of Billy’s neighborhood friends taking out a letter she had never thrown away from Billy. The shear fact that Bridie has kept the letter all this time shows she is not capable of letting go of her memories with Billy. Whilst the letter was written on a cocktail napkin, suggesting he was drinking, it was still a kind note stating Billy had seen a young girl who looked exactly like Bridie. The fact that Billy wrote this kind letter to a friend while he was most likely drinking shows he was not remembered by his loved ones as a mean-spirited drunk but as a kindhearted person who drank to get through the loss of his true love Eva. The letter is passed around the table at the funeral party and everyone handles it with great care. McDermott suggests this through a simile: “held as delicately as a fledgling” (9). A fledging is a young bird that has just left its nest. This suggests that they are all holding on to a precious memory of Billy like they would hold a small young bird that is delicate.  It shows how gentle they want to be with this letter because destroying it would mean destroying a memory of Billy. As the letter is passed around, it is also mentioned that people took out reading glasses in order to make sure they did not miss a single detail of Billy’s beautiful writing or miss out on a memory they would have of him. This allows the reader to understand how much his friends and family cared for him because they were not willing to miss anything involving Billy. At the end of the quote, Bridie rereads the letter again before placing it back into her purse, suggesting her ceaseless idea of keeping Billy’s presence fresh in her mind.  In the last quote of the passage, Billy is described as writing several letters to friends and family from wherever he may have been. He is described as writing letters on a Playbill page, a business card, letters he wrote during the war, postcards from his Irish trip, and napkins from restaurants. The fact that Billy wrote these letters wherever he may have been signifies that he cared for his loved ones. For example, rather than causing mishap at a bar when he was drunk, he would write a letter to a loved one like he sent to Bridie. Billy’s ability to think about others and show his feelings through letters no matter where he was shows his loving characteristics. McDermott, allowing Billy to be a lovable character makes the reader emotionally attached to him. As a reader we create an image of him as being a kind man sending letters to all his loved ones. This grasps the attention of the reader because the reader would not want to continue with the novel if they did not care for the main character and feel somewhat attached to them. This leads to the reader yearning to learn more about Billy.  

            In Charming Billy, Alice McDermott achieves every author’s goal of engaging her reading at the beginning of a novel. She does this by securing the reader’s trust through her use of vivid imagery and figurative language while introducing a heartbroken man, Billy, who uses drinking to deal with his loss of his true love Eva, who in his mind is the only women he can love to the extent that you can possibly love someone.  After gaining the readers trust and attention the reader is intrigued to keep reading in order to learn what events Billy went through during his life that allowed him to be loved and remembered the way he is. At the end of the first chapter, the reader is left in suspense when it is revealed that Eva had never died, “’Eva lived”’ (29). This plot changing revelation grants the reader a million questions, which finalizes McDermott’s success at truly engaging her reader at the beginning of her novel, Charming Billy.