WHAT ABOUT THE BABY?

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.