What readers think of The Ninth Hour, plus links to write your own review.

This is a wonderful story about life among the Irish-American Catholic community in New York City in the early 1900s. A nice little story. And then PUNCH! The last part of the book delivers such a powerful, unexpected and wholly formidable if not astounding ending that I felt it in my gut. Holy cow! Author Alice McDermott has done it again.

The book tells the story of life inside a convent of the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor. The good nuns take to the streets every day to care for the sick and poverty-stricken. Annie, a young, pregnant widow, whose husband has committed the grave sin of suicide, is taken in by the nuns. She soon delivers a baby girl, named Sally, and the two spend their days in the convent laundry. Years pass, and Annie then does something in secret that nearly causes their world to fall apart when she is discovered. And then Sally, who has lived such a cloistered life, tries to rectify the sin to save her mother's immortal soul.

Alice McDermott is an extraordinary writer (Admission: She is one of my favorites!), and this book will just grab your heart and not let go. Read it!!!

At first I thought this was a religious book but I feel it was about how you live your life. The nuns were all different so you could associate with them in your own life.

The author writes great descriptions about everything.

Phrases I liked.

Truth finds the light.
Lies never stay hidden.
Love's a tonic, not a cure.

Aside from all other wonderfully wrought considerations it is a thrilling story of life abounding which I told twice in the one day I finished the book. It is really thrilling.

The Ninth Hour begins with Jim's suicide and though he is gone and is only briefly introduced to us (the readers) he permeates the story line. His widow is given a job as an assistant laundress by the Sisters and his daughter grows up in the convent laundry surrounded and influenced by these women of God. His widow, Annie, sacrifices her life for her daughter and to make restitution for Jim's sins. The daughter decides to become a nun "until she thinks better of it." We are drawn into the family story of these two and the people who populate their lives. It is a story of life's trials and the decisions made under the influence of one single act by another. A poignant and well-told tale!