DOWNRIVER

McDermott shares his journey from childhood adversity to the U.S. Army to investment banking in this memoir.

Born in 1978 to a single mother, the author grew up in Orlando with a “void” born of his biological father’s absence. McDermott found a positive role model in his stepfather, Rick Hardwicke, but their relationship became strained when the author reached high school. Following a divorce from Rick, McDermott’s mother experienced delusions, was committed to a mental hospital, and lost their home in foreclosure. Despite these challenges, the author was accepted into West Point and began his military career. In his personal life, McDermott met his biological father and forged a relationship with his half-siblings. A relationship with a high school acquaintance named Lucy turned romantic in 2001; the couple married in 2002 and welcomed a baby boy. In 2003, the author was deployed to Kuwait for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Upon his return later that year, McDermott began experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and left the Army in 2005. In 2006, he started an MBA program at the University of Virginia. Under pressure to provide for his growing family, McDermott became an investment banker, but he was laid off in the financial collapse of 2008, resulting in a huge blow to his confidence. The author accepted a lower-paying job in Washington, D.C., and his wife and children moved to Florida to be closer to family. After being assaulted during a home invasion in 2011, McDermott hit rock bottom and sought counseling to heal from his traumatic past. In 2013, he and Lucy divorced, only to reconcile during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a full-circle conclusion, McDermott’s son Brandon was accepted into the West Point class of 2025.  

The author tells a compelling and unflinchingly personal story about his winding road toward wholeness and healing in this moving memoir. He boldly owns up to uncomfortable truths: “Investment banking was not a path I chose for my family but a path I came to lust for with selfish ambition.” Insightful revelations like “I’m doing the very thing I loathed most about my father. It is the trauma of my life I’m passing on to my children” will be relatable to trauma survivors. Evocative descriptions drop readers into McDermott’s surroundings (“the Kuwaiti desert stretched out around us, an endless expanse of sand that blurred the boundary between earth and sky”). The narrative is well-balanced and diversified; McDermott intersperses poems, journal entries, letters, and counseling sessions into the narrative. However, the poems—paired with explanations—feel like unnecessary additions to an already fleshed-out narrative. Stanzas like “I’ve been missing you all the while. I’ve been missing the sight of / deep blue eyes. // I’ve been missing your smile. I’ve been missing you every night— / my starlight” demonstrate passion but minimal technique. The book’s second part, with its extended military scenes and technical language (“While we were engaging an enemy dismount with 7.62 mm coax, one of the links in the feed shoot broke off”) may lose civilian readers. Lucy, as written, comes off as a one-dimensional woman; readers are informed she is beautiful, but little is shared about her inner world, hopes, or desires. The nonlinear timeline also makes it difficult to follow the author’s professional rise and personal downfall.

A moving memoir that favors poetry over people.