Beyond the Book: Background information when reading After This

Beyond the Book

This article relates to After This

Alice McDermott was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1953.  Her first novel, A Bigamists' Daughter, was published to wide acclaim in 1982. That Night (1987) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. At Weddings and Wakes (1992) was a New York Times bestseller. Charming Billy (1998), won the National Book Award.  Child of My Heart followed in 2002.

She received her B.A. in 1975 from the State University of New York at Oswego, and her M.A. in 1978 from the University of New Hampshire. She has taught at the University of California at San Diego and American University, has been a writer-in-residence at Lynchburg and Hollins Colleges in Virginia, and was lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire. Her short stories have appeared in Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, and Seventeen.  She is currently writer-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She lives outside Washington, with her husband, a neuroscientist, and three children.

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This "beyond the book article" relates to After This. It originally ran in October 2006 and has been updated for the September 2007 paperback edition. Go to magazine.