The Ninth Hour: A Novel

I decided not to finish this book. I rarely do that-and I generally read and finish about 4-5 novels a month.
I found it was depressing and although books I enjoy don't all have to be a ray of sunshine--I could see that this was not going to
let up-so I got rid of it.
I share all my finished books--but I did not want to pass this on.

This book first attracted my interest based its premise, which was unique and engaging.
In some ways the it gave the sense of two separate and not necessarily complimentary stories.
While I enjoyed the book, I would have preferred the author to have adhered to the original story line.

Perhaps because I am not Catholic I didn't enjoy this book. Perhaps I didn't like the characters. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood for this book. But one thing I know for sure is that this book was such a disappointment to me. I guess an author cannot always write a book like Charming Billy which I loved but The Ninth Hour really left a bitter taste in my mouth.

So eerie, the resonances that you find as you read McDermott's spectacular prose. The characters are so vivid you can see them, hear them, smell them, touch them. And what a pleasure to find nuns who may stagger in their own estimation, but are so deeply dedicated that we forgive them their humanness. This is a novel of unflinching compassion.

Really enjoyed this piece of literary fiction. It was a fast read but the plot was skillfully planned and beautifully entwined around the life of Sally from becoming to end. The piece reminded me of the various novels and writing style however of Ann Patchett, one of my favorite authors.

I read this book hoping it would get better... have an up side. It was just doom and gloom all the way through until the end. Nuns and one parent families have no chance for happiness during this era I guess. I finished the book feeling very let down. I really wanted an ending with some upbeat or redeeming result, but was sadly very disappointed. Not my kind of book.

The writing was beautiful. Alice McDermott is descriptive but not overly wordy. She paints exquisite pictures that you can see and feel. The plot left me wondering what the story was really about. I expected a more exciting plot. The scenery was painted beautifully but the characters and the storyline was a bit blurry. I was never sure who to focus on and the characters stories were a mishmash and thrown in oddly. I don't feel like I know ant of them intimately. It was a short read but hard to get through. I felt like I was waiting for something big to happen but I was let down.

Nice writing perhaps; plenty of words, but what started as sweet and kindly acts became gritty and ugly -- and then just ended, as if she'd run out of space or inclination to write a more satisfactory ending.

{My Thoughts}

What Worked For Me
Little Nursing Sisters – The convent at the heart of The Ninth Hour fell under the umbrella of “The Little Nursing Sisters.” It was their job to go out in the very Catholic Brooklyn community and nurse those who were sick or suffering. Their calling involved what we would consider traditional nursing, but went way beyond that. For those in need, the sisters would also cook, clean, take in laundry, provide company, and sustenance for the souls of the sick. I couldn’t help thinking what a great service these women provided.

A Little Bit of Meddling – When Sister St. Savior happened onto the scene of a suicide, she quickly resolveded to take the young widow, Annie and her unborn child, under her wing. For rest of their lives, Annie and Sally were loved and cared for by the Sisters in this small nursing convent. The sisters made sure Annie had a job where she could have her baby near. They maneuvered another young woman into the role of Annie’s best friend and confidant. They even made sure Annie had for a life of her own. The sister’s adored Sally and were always present in her life, always supporting, but gently nudging her along the way.

Annie – Annie could easily have become a one-sided character under the tutelage of the sisters, but McDermott didn’t let that happen. Instead, Annie became a woman that was easy to admire. With few options, and a little help, Annie built a good life for herself and her child. She was spirited and willing to forge her own way, not always living by the standards of the nuns or the Catholic community in general.

“You spoke up,” she wanted to tell her friend, spoke up against the lousy certainties life had given her: a dead husband, a daughter to raise alone, daily labor, daily loneliness, dull duty. She said, in fact, when next she and Annie met, “An hour or two of an afternoon isn’t much of a sin.”

Beautiful Writing – It’s easy to see why Alice McDermott has been nominated for so many awards. Her writing was exquisite and her descriptions vivid. A a reader, I was absolutely transported to the gritty streets of 1930’s Brooklyn. I knew what it felt like to work in the convent’s laundry room, to a sit on a train next to a dirty, crass woman, or to enter the sickroom of a one-legged patient.

What Didn’t
Slow to Build – I liked so much about The Ninth Hour and still it didn’t really take off for me until the last 20%. As I read the book, I kept feeling like my interest was just on the verge of soaring, and then it would drop again. The Ninth Hour had too much background for my taste. Some of it muddied the storyline which ebbed and flowed for me.

Too Much Angst – The Ninth Hour is a story of the Catholic faith within the confines of this small Brooklyn convent, but even so, I grew tired of some of the Catholic guilt and need for penance for sins big and small. I also grew weary of a storyline having to do with a side character’s dying father and guilt he held over a choice from his youth.

{The Final Assessment}

In the end, I’m glad I read The Ninth Hour. McDermott’s writing alone makes it well worth the time. Add to that Brooklyn in its heyday, and the amazing Little Nursing Sisters with their protective calling and you have a really interesting little historical fiction. Grade: B-

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

I thought this was a beautifully written, and probably realistic, book. I say probably because I don't know about Irish Catholic New York, especially during this time period. But it contained several well-developed and interesting characters, and showed their progression through life. There were no flat characters, or cliche scenes. The one thing that confused toward the end was the idea that someone could take on someone else's sins. I never head of that idea.

Having attended a Catholic, parochial school as a child, I could picture the nuns in this story gliding around after Jim’s suicide, which happened on the beginning pages of this book. The nuns, with their kind, or cynical, or innocent, or brusque, always human personalities were repeatedly described – sometimes, however, with a few too many facts – as the book continued to its end. In their ‘humanness’, some were quick to do what they felt should be done in any given situation, not necessarily what their church and vows demanded.

I had trouble at first figuring out who was writing about whom. It eventually cleared itself up but still was choppy throughout. It was written from the point of view by children of Sally, who we never get to meet on those pages. Strange.

I really did enjoy the writing style with its graceful prose – almost poetic. But it was painfully sad, weary, and melancholy, with little simple happiness. It seemed like there was a black cloud over every page. I almost gave up reading because the book was such a downer, but it was very captivating in a weird sort of way. I wasn’t at all crazy about the book, but I couldn’t put it down. Yes, strange.

I wish I could give a movable rating. I would give five stars for writing style, three for story, and two for the ending. Was there really an ending, or did the author run out of paper? Definitely, strange.

Reading 'The Ninth Hour' was like being transported back to childhood, when stories about Catholic nuns were tremendously appealing to me. They still are. Though this isn't just about a community of nuns. The heart of this beautifully written novel is the universal heart of every human story: people struggling with issues of life and death and everything in-between.

Grief, sorrow, sadness and pain are threads linking the characters together, as is the dire sickness and poverty in Brooklyn during the 1940s and 1950s, where the story takes place and the Little Nursing Sisters Of The Sick Poor tend the wounded with mercy and grace.

The characters are warmly drawn and totally believable. There are no perfect people here. All are subject to the vagaries of life, needing to make compromises as they act out of their own fierce compassion and kindness toward others, or with a degree of self-interest instead.

Very aptly, for a book named after the biblical hour when Jesus cried out and breathed his last, this intriguing novel opens with a death. The shame of Jim’s suicide greatly affects his pregnant wife, Annie, and significantly alters the lives of future generations to come.

But despite the dark nature of the narrative at times, the author's deft storytelling, spare prose and lightness of touch, laced with episodes of wry humour, make this a fascinating glimpse into hardship and faith and an enjoyable read from start to finish. Highly recommended.

I'm a big fan of Alice McDermott and The Ninth Hour is McDermott at her best. The Boston Globe appropriately calls McDermott "a virtuoso of language and image, allusion and reflection, reference and symbol." Lilly King (Washington Post) calls The Ninth Hour "superb and masterful." Donna Seaman, Booklist writes "McDermott's extraordinary precision, compassion and artistry are entrancing and sublime....This is one of literary master McDermott's most exquisite works." O, The Oprah Magazine writes "The National Book Award winner delivers another exquisite novel in which those who at first appear unremarkable......are revealed as heroines, unflinching in their devotion to the flawed humans around them." Although McDermott is often called a Catholic writer, her novel encompasses universal themes: faith, punishment, the power of sacrifice, redemption, guilt, secrets, depression. And more: The Ninth Hour is also about love, both forbidden and sanctioned. A true tour de force from one of American's finest writers.

In the early part of the twentieth century in the Irish Catholic community in Brooklyn, a man's suicide leaves his pregnant wife to make a life alone for herself and her daughter, the as yet unborn Sally, around whom the remembered story is built. Sister St. Saviour comes upon the scene of the gas oven suicide and resultant fire and begins her efforts to live up to her chosen name, from trying to hide the cause of death so the dead husband might be buried in hallowed ground, to finding work at the convent for the pregnant widow, Annie, who ends up in the laundry room as assistant to curmudgeonly Sister Illuminata, who, along with the other nuns, helps raise Sally from an infant asleep in a basket in the laundry room to a young woman who thinks she hears the calling to serve as sister herself.

There is no question but that Alice McDermott is an author prodigiously gifted at vividly rendered miniatures, delicate, detailed captures of circumstance, character, reality, and emotion that coalesce into a panorama of the human heart. Too, her facility for prose bordering on poetry combined with sentences of such shocking accuracy and truth one nearly gasps with recognition, make for a reading experience akin to literary love-making. Listen:

While Annie and Sister Jeanne knelt, Sister St. Saviour blessed herself and considered the sin of her deception, slipping a suicide into hallowed ground. A man who had rejected his life, the love of this brokenhearted girl, the child coming to them in the summer. She said to God, who knew her thoughts, Hold it against me if You will. He could put this day on the side of the ledger where all her sins were listed: the hatred she felt for certain politicians, the money she stole from her own basket to give out as she pleased --- to a girl with a raging clap, to the bruised wife of a drunk, to the mother of the thumb-sized infant she had wrapped in a clean handkerchief, baptized, and then buried in the convent garden. All the moments of how many days when her compassion failed, her patience failed, when her love for God's people could not outrun the girlish alacrity of her scorn for their stupidity, their petty sins.

That is undeniably beautiful writing, possessed of a rhythm and music, a few sentences, sculpted into the story of a woman's soul and life. By the same token, Alice McDermott can sketch with one short sentence everything we need know about a character, as she does about the less introspective, more rigid Sister Lucy:

All joy was thin ice to Sister Lucy.

That is laugh out loud funny. Especially if one has spent any time in one's life with nuns. There are the Sister St. Saviour variety and the Sister Lucy variety and Alice McDermott limns both and the experience of the devoted Catholic life with expertise, sympathy, insight, and wisdom. In particular, especially in The Ninth Hour, she explores the conflict between the tenets of the faith as taught by the church, and the challenges of real life, where circumstances sometimes render the commands of the church impractical to impossible to cruel. Alice McDermott explores the compromises made by the faithful and the cost of believing, the burden of sacrifice, and the malleable nature of the definition of right and wrong, what, exactly --- or more aptly, inexactly, defines sin.

I don't want to spoil the plot, so I'll only say characters struggle with that existential moment when murder becomes mercy and whether or not the act can ever be forgiven, excused, justified.

All of the qualities Alice McDermott brings to her work make it always worth reading, and The Ninth Hour is no different. However, I found its structure to be problematic. The time jumping as the narrator told a tale passed down through a few generations made it difficult to keep track of characters, who was what to whom when, and the perspective wavering between reverie and documentary was jarring for me. A mosaic is a beautiful thing, and I appreciate the technique, but I felt there was a lack of clarity in the voice because of the piecemeal way the story was told, by which I mean I think the framework made the through-line more difficult to follow than was necessary.

The early part of the twentieth century is replete with immigrant stories about New York, especially Brooklyn. Alice McDermott is a master of Irish legends, creating a story here that kept my nerves on edge, hoping some good will come to some of her Irish American characters. The Ninth Hour begins with a scene in a tenement building where Jim, recently fired from his job on the BMT railroad, kills himself, leaving behind his wife, Annie and an unborn child. Sally, the baby, arrives in the world surrounded by the safe environment of the nuns who comprise the Little Sister of the Sick Poor in a nearby convent. Annie works in the washroom with Sister St. Savior and Sally grows up with her mom and Sister St. Savior guiding her way. The story of the magic the women do with the wash that fills their days and the stories of times gone past in Ireland make this a vibrant chronicle from the very beginning.

Every detail of this strong story of the mother and child and then mom and teenager kept me glued to each new chapter. The skill of Anne McDermott's writing, characterization, and story telling kept me fascinated to the very last word. The story helped remind me what my ancestors and so many others went through to live a better life in a new country. Life was never easy, and today, we know that immigrants from other nations are finding it even harder.

The Ninth Hour really brought me back in time since I had the nuns for teachers from first grade to my nursing school days. There were some sisters who were truly devoted and kind and then, of course, a few who were mean and scary. This is the story of a young widow named Annie, who was taken in by the sisters in the 1950s. Annie was also expecting her first child. This is Annie’s story and also that of her daughter, Sally, whose young life was influenced by the sisters because her mother worked many hours in the convent laundry with Sally by her side. Sally was protected from the real world by the good sisters. When Sally reached the age of being out on her own she was thrust into a world so cruel and foreign that she had to return. But the world she left behind was to be no more. I very much enjoyed this story as well as the trip down memory lane. The world for single women was not as it is today. The Ninth Hour was a true picture of that time with all it’s prejudices and restrictions. A very moving and well written story.

A dark, thought-provoking and moving story about an Irish immigrant family and a community of nuns who thanklessly care for the sick and the poor.

SUMMARY
Late one winter afternoon, Jim ushered his wife out the door to do some shopping. After she leaves, this Irish immigrant subway worker blocked the door, covered the windows and opened up the gas taps in their Brooklyn tenement. His suicide would forever alter the lives of his wife, Annie, and his unborn daughter, Sally. Despite being aided and shepherded by a community of nursing nuns, Annie and Sally struggle with life decisions and their moral compass in years following Jim’s death. The story is narrated by one of Sally’s children, with the focus on Sally’s life, as well as the lives and works of the nuns who administer to the need of the Brooklyn Irish immigrant community.

“Fairness demanded that grief should find succor, that wounds should heal, insults and confusion find recompense and certainty, that every living person God has made should not, willy-nilly, be forever unmade.”

REVIEW
The Ninth Hour is the time for afternoon prayers for the nursing nuns. It’s a time to ask for God’s mercy for the ills and sins of their community. Annie and Sallie needed the nuns prayers, as did so many others in their Brooklyn neighborhood. Set in the first half of the twentieth century, THE NINTH HOUR is dark and affecting. The prose was masterfully descriptive, evocative and emotional. The detailed descriptions of the grim aspects of illnesses and death that the nuns experienced, among the poor were gritty. One of the most poignant chapters in the book was innocent Sally’s dramatic train trip to Chicago. She was going to Chicago to join a convent, but the shocking experiences with the coarse people she encountered on the train caused her to change her mind. She immediately returned to Brooklyn, only to find that things had changed there in her brief absence.

The characters were complex and plentiful. Issues of death, depression, sin, reparations, secrets and guilt are explored. Lovers of dark and affecting literary fiction will appreciate THE NINTH HOUR. This is McDermontt’s eight novel. She has received The National Book (2017), the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction (2018), and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction ( 2017), for this book.
Publisher Farrah Straus and Giroux
Publication Date September 19, 2017
Narrated Euan Morton

“She saw how the skim of filth, which was despair, which was hopelessness, fell like soot on the lives of the poor.”

I have just finished The Ninth Hour. I love Alice McDermott and have read some of her poignant, well-crafted books. But to me, this was not one of them. It was a slog to get through and near the end, and I almost gave up. What I found a bit scary was Sally's momentary bursts of anger that literally change her life, changing it not for the good. Was she a human sacrifice in McDermott's mind? Did punching her train mate's face seal the deal on her not becoming a nun? Did her (near?) poisoning of the wife of her mother's lover lead to her life-long depression? It was these kinds of twists and turns that I found excruciating, not life affirming as so many reviewers seemed to have taken away from this book. There was a lot of driftwood floating through this novel. Having grown up in a mid-twentieth century Irish Catholic family, and having lost my own father through a car accident before I was a teen, and having left the church behind many years ago, this book did not evoke the warmth in me that I McDermott was seeking to eek out of us in this work and that did in several of her other books.. Sure, it covered many of the touch stones that strict Catholic belief relied on in those years but instead of leaving me longing for the good old days, I wanted no part of them. That made me sad, not empathetic. Sorry, but I really am not a fan of this book.

Wow! I have read all of Alice McDermott's books, and this one is as phenomenal as all of the others! McDermott takes us into the lives of nuns and their friends in a close-knit Brooklyn neighborhood, starting in the early 1900s. Over the years, we grow to love the nuns (each is so unique), and the two women who work with them, along with their extended family and friends. McDermott's prose is rich and exquisite. This book is so incredibly well-written,...I felt right there on the overnight train to Chicago! This is why her books win all of the major awards! Take time to savor this fabulous novel!

Alice McDermott's new novel, The Ninth Hour</a>, begins with a suicide and a failed cover-up, setting off a series of events tinged with moral dilemmas that cascade for decades.

Fired from his job as a train man for the BRT and with a pregnant wife, Jim, an Irish immigrant, commits suicide in the apartment he shares with Annie. An elderly nun, Sister Saint Saviour of the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, takes pity on Annie. The crafty nun makes a foiled attempt to cover up the suicide, wanting to give Jim a Christian burial.

The scene highlights the conflict between the Catholic Church's rules and the compassion Sister St. Saviour feels for the fallen man and his poor widow. It's a theme McDermott returns to throughout the story.

The nuns give Annie a job in the basement laundry room of the convent, where they practically raise her daughter, Sally. Annie befriends Michael and Liz Tierney, and their families become close over the years, their stories intertwining with hers.

Set in early 20th Century Brooklyn, The Ninth Hour portrays the nuns not as unrealistically virtuous or inhumanly harsh caricatures, but as three dimensional sober-eyed champions of the downtrodden: cleaning bedpans and soiled clothing, ministering to invalids and poor people, and giving comfort to people without hope. Their morality is guided not by the priests, who rarely appear in the story, but by their own sense of what is right and fair
.
The nuns are richly drawn characters. Sister Jeanne, a young nun who takes Sally under her wing, “believed with the conviction of an eyewitness that all human loss would be restored: the grieving child would have her mother again; the dead infant would find robust health; suffering, sorrow, accident and loss would all be amended in heaven. She believes this because…fairness demanded it.”

Sister Illuminati runs the basement laundry room with energetic efficiency. Here, McDermott’s fine eye for detail is on display as she writes of Sister Illuminati’s assortment of laundry ingredients: “the store bought Borax and Ivory and bluing agents, but the potions she mixed herself: bran water to stiffen curtains and wimples, alum water to make muslin curtains and nightwear fire resistant, brewed coffee to darken the sisters’ stockings and black tunics, Fels-Naptha water for general washing, Javelle water (washing soda, chloride of lime, boiling water) for restoring limp fabric.”

There is the no-nonsense Sister Lucy, who is described as having “a small tight knot of fury at the center of her chest.”

Each of the nuns makes compromises and accommodations in the name of love and mercy. Sister Saint Saviour, when she reflects on her attempt to get a Christian burial for a man who committed suicide, prays to God, “Hold it against the good I’ve done, she prayed. We’ll sort it out when I see You.”

On the cusp of adulthood, Sally believes she has a vocation for the convent. However, during a train ride to a Chicago convent where she will prepare for her orders, Sally is revolted by the cruelty and squalor she experiences. She quickly decides not to become a nun.

What she desires more than anything is to find happiness for her mother, who spends her afternoons with Mr. Costello, a milkman, but cannot marry him because he is married. His invalid, bed ridden wife treats the nuns who care for her each day while Mr. Costello is on his milk route, with contempt and cruelty.

Eventually Sally marries childhood friend Patrick Tierney. Later we learn from the children that she plunges into clinical depression in midlife.

McDermott chooses as her narrator Jim and Annie’s grandchildren, which gives the story a panoramic scope and the perspective of the passage of time. Interwoven are vignettes about the family’s history and the sacrifices made and sins committed in the name of love.

There are many lessons to draw from this novel. The one that resonates most for me is that we are all imperfect, but we all must strive to do what is right. As Mrs. Tierney, Sally’s mother-in-law puts it, “God’s not going to hold it against you if you’re something less than a blessed saint. Aren’t we all human? Aren’t we all doing the best we can?”

The Ninth Hour is an utterly charming novel about faith, dissent, good works and love. The novel begins when Jim decides to take his own life by releasing gas into his lungs, leaving pregnant Annie on her own to make her way with her not yet born daughter. It is Annie's good fortune (if there is such a thing as good fortune in these circumstances), that Sister St. Savior, on her way back to the convent after an "afternoon in the vestibule of the Woolworth's at Borough Hall, her alms basket in her lap", walked by the Brooklyn tenement "with the terrible scent of doused fire on the winter air."

"It was Sister St. Savior's vocation to enter the homes of strangers, mostly the sick and the elderly, to breeze into their apartments and to sail comfortably through their rooms..." With the help of Sister St. Savior and her convent, Annie is able to go on with her life.

Sister St. Savior arranges for Annie to work in the laundry at the Little Nursing Sisters convent for $18 a week, breakfast and lunch. She brings her daughter Sallie with her and Sallie grows up in the convent. Annie befriends young Sister Jeanne, to whom she remains close throughout her life, and develops relationships with Sister Illuminata (master of the laundry) and Sister Lucy (gruff do gooder). The nuns also introduce Annie to Elizabeth Tierney, mother to a gaggle of children, who becomes her closest friend. Through the convent Annie meets Mr. Costello, the milkman, whose invalid wife is in the constant care of the nuns.

Sallie, Annie's daughter, at some point in young adulthood decides to work with the nuns in caring for the sick. She spends time with Sister Lucy going to various households and decides to become a nun. She is assigned to a nursing convent in Chicago. On the overnight train to Chicago, Sallie encounters a crass woman, a grifter and a child abusing poor mother and her abused child. The experience causes her to realize that she lacks the empathy to care for the less fortunate and upon arriving in Chicago she buys a one way train ticket and immediately returns home.

Sallie marries Patrick Tierney and the reader learns the story of Red Whelan, who served as Grandfather Tierney's "substitute" in the war, and old aunt Rose, whose vocation it was to take care of Red and who is still living at the time of the tale.

The novel tells of each of the nun's pasts and their struggles, the importance of love and family, and the begrudging mutual need of the wealthy and the poor. "Love's a tonic, not a cure."

The story is told by Annie's grandchildren, piecing together their past. Sister Jeanne, who carries a secret, helps Sallie's children put together their history and understand their parents. As he was dying, their father reminded them of his love for Sallie, their "mother, who thought to be a nun, but then thought better of it...A fatherless girl, a convent child in white wool. The girl he always knew he would marry."

This is a wonderful novel, filled with real human characters, interesting storylines and great writing.

I liked this story. It is a unique plot ---so good to have something different from the

This book is unique, the setting and the characters are from an unknown world.
There are not many new story lines left in the world. The site of this tale is inside a convent. There is interaction within the convent and also a daily ministering of the nuns as they tend to their flock. We follow a widow and her daughter who have been taken into the nun's world. Annie is employed in the laundry and Sally is raised there by her mom and the nuns. The reader watches Sally grow up and begin her conflicted life. Several of the nuns are highly developed, as are a few of their needy congregation. I agree with some of the other reviewers. It is some times trying to follow the progression of the story when statements come from out of the blue that are future. However, I think McDermott has done a good job of "The Ninth Hour". This is the first of her books I have read but intend to select more to read.

After reading a book by this author for my book group last year and enjoying it, I wanted to try another one of her novels. The Ninth Hour is her most recent release (2017) and, although it was a beautifully told story, it was also quite depressing.

After Tim, a young Irish immigrant is fired from his job in Brooklyn, it's more than he can endure. Already unhappy with his marriage, he recently learned that his young wife is expecting their first child. On a bleak, February day, he sends his wife to the store, opens the gas valve on the stove and takes his own life.

To comfort and asset his grieving wife, Sister St. Savior, of a local Catholic order of the sick and poor, enters the picture to help the widow, Annie. The Sister gives Annie a job in the convent laundry where her young daughter Sally is born and will grow up.

Set in the 20th century, I enjoyed reading about the roles these nuns played within a needy community at this time. If you don't mind a sometimes downer of a story, try this one as it is beautifully rendered. This would make a good discussion book.

Rating - 4.5/5

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott (audio book) starts with a handsome young Irish immigrant, with a habit of being late to work, opens the gas taps in his apartment. He hates his job, his wife is pregnant. He wants the hours of his life to be his own. After the flames of an accidental fire have been put out, Sister Saint Savior of an order of Nursing Nuns and takes over the care of his pregnant wife Annie and unborn baby. This takes place in Brooklyn, a century ago.

Annie starts to work in the convent's basement doing laundry and takes her baby daughter, Sally in a basket with her. As she grows, Sally learns about the different nuns, they talk in the basement but are quiet above. Sally attends rounds with the sisters, learning about nursing and she picks up on the little things that they do and on their philosophy. One of the patients visited at home is Mrs. Costello who is the milkman's wife. She often complains of pain and persistently tells the story of why her leg was amputated. The scenes with Mrs. Costello were very vivid and made me think about my reactions.

Sally's mother later has an affair with Mr. Costello.

There are many related stories woven in about grief, forgiveness and faith. As I was listening to the audio version, I was writing down the gems of wisdom from the sisters. The sisters are not all the same, their life experiences made the way that they were.

I received a finished copy of the audio book version as a win from FirstReads but that in no way influenced my thoughts or feelings in this review.

Another shift from the usual books I review, this is a lovely story of lives intertwined and the history of a family across generations. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Alice McDermott weaves a tale that captured me from the first page.

Told from the view point of aged children of long dead parents, the reader is taken back several generations in time to hear the lives and deaths grandparents and great grandparents along with the ever present nuns that nurse and carry them through their lives. A time long past now, but beautifully painted for modern day readers.

I was particularly moved by the role the nuns played in the characters lives. Real women who literally and figuratively nurse and care for their flock, they reveal a depth of understanding and empathy that the other characters can only try to strive for. These women understand far more about sin and love than the reader may first believe.

Touching on the themes of redemption, loss, and forgiveness overshadowed with the unmentionable "sin" of mental illness, this is an amazing book.

I've rarely been as excited to finish a book, though not for the best of reasons. Still, you can't appreciate a good book without reading a bad one. This book was not poorly written, exactly, but it was painfully boring. I wanted desperately for it to finish as the story lagged along, and it provided very little for me to care about. As I reflect on the book, I don't see a point in its story and cannot understand how it won an award or even got published. 

I'll admit that I had a bit of a jump, being from the place and the culture. Although I didn't grow up in the period, when I was a child, I knew the first and second generations described in this story, and the author has them cold. It's hard to believe that there was a time when working people had so little that a tea cup or a handkerchief could be a prized possession.

The writing is lyrical and lovely, and the characters are rich and vivid. Reviewers who didn't like this book largely complained that the book wandered through various story lines. That's actually part of the beauty of this book--it meanders through and around the lives of the characters and weaves them together. But life is like that. People are like that. We influence each other in subtle and sometimes invisible ways.

I thank the author for bringing back the memory of my mother searching through the bottom of her purse for a quarter to give to the tiny nun who used to sit just inside the front door of A&S's with a tan reed basket on her lap.

Recommended.

The Ninth Hour was a little slow for me but I recognize the beauty in that slower pace. Alice McDermott is masterful when it comes to writing evocative, poetic text. I found myself getting caught up in just exactly how she said things. Some thought or description could have been said in fewer words but the words she chose created such imagery that I wanted to paint half the book. The opening line caught me:

"February 3 was a dark and dank day altogether: cold spitting rain in the morning and a low, steel-gray sky the rest of the afternoon."

Can you just see that? Feel that day? And, wouldn't you know it, the chapter unfolds into death.

Others have noted that the book focuses a lot on the Catholic nuns and their influences in the community. Since I grew up in an Irish Catholic family and went to parochial schools, all the references to nuns felt familiar and it was as if I were at home again. The story rambles and there are a lot of side stories told and some repetition but it all worked for me. I have some quotes marked that may well be painted in watercolors but it's not the kind of book I will hold on to read again. I prefer a more plot driven novel but I kept reading because the poetry was so stunning.

Oh what a book. The Ninth Hour was quiet and subtle and I loved it for that. I knew almost nothing about the book going into it except that I had seen its dramatic cover a few times on Instagram. Reading the jacket description did not give me very much insight either, so when I received the book I was excited to jump in. I am realizing something about myself and that is that I love books about everyday people living their lives in everyday circumstances. This book starts off with a not everyday experience and that is by a man who kills himself in his apartment and a nun on her way home to the convent finds herself getting involved in the aftermath of his death.

I know almost nothing about nuns or convents but I was fascinated to be admitted to their quiet lives through this book. The Nuns of the Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor lead quiet lives with their focus on helping others. This small convent of sisters was brought together to help people in a section of Brooklyn. These women help take care of the helpless, sick, and destitute. As Sister St Savior arrives on the devastating scene of a suicide it introduces her to the women with long flowing hair who is mourning the sudden death of her husband.

Life quietly moves on through this book and I enjoyed moving along with it. I must say that the ending caught me completely by surprise. I had in my mind how this calm story would end and I was left open-mouthed by how it actually ended. I won't say any more then that, but if you read it please comment or message me so we can talk.

I highly recommend this book for people who enjoy historical fiction of a quieter nature. For readers who enjoy seeing someone else's life through the lens of several different characters.

The appeal of Alice McDermott's novels lies in how beautifully she portrays the lives of Irish/Americans usually in bygone eras, breathing life into her characters. Here her predominantly female population lives in early twentieth century Brooklyn, and she manages as usual to tell a story simply and clearly with no ambiguity. On a gray February evening, a nun enters a tenement where tragedy has struck, finding herself in her usual role of tending to the strangers within, most prominently, Annie, a young woman, pregnant and newly widowed. This simple act of mercy forever entwines Annie and her future generations with the order of the Little Nursing Sisters of the poor. It is illuminating to learn of the role played by the Sisters to the community, but it is the all too real characters of Annie and her daughter Sallie that move the story. I particularly enjoyed the unfolding of the train ride from hell which McDermott brings to life so vividly. This is a novel that will resonate for a long time.

5520. The Ninth Hour, by Alice McDermott (read 16 Dec 2017) The author of this book won the Pulitzer Prize for a previous book, Charming Billy, which I read 26 Feb 1999. The Ninth Hour is laid in New York City in the early years of the 20th century, opening with the suicide of a pregnant woman's husband. A convent of hard-working nuns come to the widow's assistance and the book relates the lives of the widow and her daughter Sally. Sally grows up in the sisters' world and almost enters the convent. Her mother carries on an adulterous affair which her daughter, Sallie, seeks to end in a shocking way. The book is suffused by Catholicity but one wishes there were more concern for right living by the people the nuns serve. I certainly approved of the consciousness of sin which the characters displayed but would have preferred the characters eventually doing the right thing more often. So I cannot say I enjoyed the reading of his book as much as I hoped I would.

Alice McDermott's The NInth Hour is spellbinding--so hard to put it down, and so hard to be at the end! McDermott has given us far more than a glimpse of life in New York, life in a convent, life in the hearts and minds of women both in the order and in the world. The Ninth Hour is exactly the sort of book I love best: complex and simple at once, open and secretive at once, gentle and fierce at once, and not only generational among families but generational and among classes in manners and mores, lares and penates. Thank you, Alice McDermott. Wonderful, wonderful.

This is an exquisitely written book that addresses questions of life and death, both physical life and death and spiritual life and death. The characters, their lives, their Brooklyn are vividly drawn. Each faces major decisions that will change her or his life forever. The ending was stunning to me. I could not put it down and stayed up too late to finish the last half of the book. I will have to read it again to savor it more slowly.

Nuns are so often stereotypes and negative ones at that. The nuns here are fully drawn individuals. Their theology can be a little off but their lives are heroic, tho they would never describe themselves that way. And I had to laugh when Sister St Saviour harrumphed at 'The New York Times and its Big Mouth'.

So much more to say but can't do it without spoilers. Wonderful book.

The Ninth Hour follows the life of an Irish-American girl, Sally, born shortly after the suicide of her father. The story involves the order of nuns who show charity to the mother and child, and Sally's own experiences and flawed character as she becomes a woman.

Alice McDermott brings out all the drama in the common, and uncommon, events of life. The book is full of compelling characters. We only need to know a few things about each character to see what they are made of, and McDermott is able to select those things for us, and leave the rest alone. The conclusion is edgy and climactic as certain characters that we think we know behave unexpectedly.

I'm glad to have discovered this writer.

Alice McDermott has produced a masterpiece in her account of the lives of faith and sacrifice of a cross-cutting group of Irish Catholic women in New York, across three generations, 80 years ago. This may not sound like very promising material for a gripping and moving read, but in McDermott's hands, this is what it becomes. Her eye for detail, ear for language and heart for feeling produce robust, three dimensional characters in a story whose power is even greater for its understated tone and gentle touch. “The Ninth Hour” is a masterpiece, hard to put down while also hard to finish and hard to forget.

A beautifully written book which touched me deeply Ms. McDermott's descriptions are among the finest I have ever read. Perhaps it appealed to me as a Catholic who attended parochial school in the old days when all the teachers were nuns. Even as a kid I could observe their diverse personalities; - the impatient one, quick with a ruler on an opened palm; the gentle sister who took pity on the slow learners; the strict ones who made me want to learn. dedicated teachers who In my youth nuns didn't drive cars and my mother spent many a Sunday driving a few of them to their mother house (Sisters of St.Dominica of Amityville) to special ceremonies when postulants took their final vows or funerals. Sitting in the car with them my mother and I got to know them as good friends. So much of what I was reading rang very true as I remembered those long ago days when nuns were an important part of my life.

Ms. McDermott's descriptions are some of the most beautifully crafted I have ever read.

The story combines gritty reality with religious charity. Underneath the generosity of holiness we see motivation that has personal gain. What is sinful hides beneath a veneer of fairness when the poor, the widows, and their babies struggle for the right to life. Irish Catholics have always bent religion toward more practical needs, not standing on ceremonies for pomp’s sake. The characters develop as their consciences take shape around difficult circumstances that compromise their path to heaven. Is fairness a truth, a right we all have, or a myth conjured up on an individual basis?

I chose to read The Ninth Hour on the strength of the many 5 star reviews that it received. Heralded as "a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn," I expected a novel steeped in history of the times. Instead, I found the book to be boring and the characters to be lacking substance.

Annie, who had been pregnant with her daughter when her husband commits a sin that has dire consequences, is taken care of by the nuns and sheltered by their warmth and caring. Sally, who was raised in the convent laundry at which her mother worked, uses the nuns as her role models when her mother's behavior is reprehensible. A train ride shakes Sally's convictions to the core, leading her down a different path.

The sign of a good historical fiction is the ability of the reader to be immersed into the time period. For me, this does not happen with The Ninth Hour. Instead, I plodded through the relatively short book, hoping that my initial impressions of the story would not hold forth until the ending. I thought this book was a missed opportunity by the author and would not recommend it to other readers.

Beautiful drivel.
McDermott has an amazing eye for detail and can bring the reader deep into a scene. It's admirable. It's talent. But this story - my first and last - lacks continuity. It's selfish in a way that's blatant. I had an English professor once call a piece of my writing, "mental masturbation." This is a highly evolved version of just that. We dabble into characters and emotion, spending so much time on finite detail, the starch of a sister's veil, the light in the room, there's little room for the story itself to blossom.

The first chapter, the suicide, (not a spoiler) is an exquisite rendering of emotion and doubt. It's an ideal short story entry. The remainder of the book is an exploration of half-told vignettes.

I kept wanting to love this but couldn't stop wishing for a moment of authenticity. McDermott can craft sentences and create moments. No doubt. But her cohesive story-telling leaves this reader disappointed and craving something tangible and real.

McDermott is a jewel of a writer. Gorgeous prose makes you wonder if she ever wrote poetry. A wonderful economy of expression accomplishing a great deal in a short space. This book reveals a world far away in time and culture, but totally present in terms of moral dilemmas and emotional life.
Just a splendid book which draws you in even if you are not (as I wasn't) at all interested in the setting or the characters. Whatever you think you want to read about if McDermott is writing you should have a look.

Sometimes it's hard to hang on to the characters in this novel. Drawn sharply, some of them have bit parts, some more major, but they ring true. This novel pulls literally lifts the veils from the Little Sisters of Brooklyn. They aren't the pious ignorant women so often portrayed, but wise to the fallacies of church and state. I missed learning more about Annie and Sally but the resolution fit the size of the novel. I felt like a knew these folks as well as the family members I'd never gotten to know.

I would probably rate this a 3.7 but because I really love Alice McDermott and her staff writing, I am rounding up to a 4. Her prose is absolutely exquisite. That being said, this book failed to engage me in the same way as her others. Similar to her other books, it focused on the Irish American community. It takes place in Brooklyn in the early 20th century. A book on immigrants and their struggles, but in this one, the Church was more primarily focused with a Catholic order of nuns who treated the sick and the poor along with the theme of sacrifice by many.

I could not put this book down. I now want to read all of Alice McDermott's books. However, did I miss the reason why Sister Jeanne "thought" she would not enter heaven? Because there is only one reason a person (that has accepted Jesus as their Saviour and repents) will not enter the Kingdom. That reason is if they blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.

The analogy that the author gave about death and entering heaven (Sister Jeanne's account about an old wool coat) was ingenious.

Sally has been brought up by her widowed mother and a group of nuns. She learns of the hardships of the poor and the community of souls who could not take care of themselves except for the help of the Sisters of the Sick Poor. This book is blunt, sparing no detail of the human condition. Some may find this book offensive with it details of the toilet, yet others will find the service of the sisters illuminating. Truly a book about humanity.

I loved this book. I wanted more about this Brooklyn Irish immigrant family. Living in a tenement, the Catholic community was held together by a nun, Sister St. Savior. The story is told by a collective group, children and grandchildren. The characters are rich and full of life. The story line is interesting and the book demonstrates what I love about a good book.

A moving story about a group of nuns in the early 20th Century and the impoverished Brooklynites they care for. Although a bit slow, the novel is wonderfully written. At the heart of the tale lies a young widow and her daughter who come to rely upon the charity of the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, and in turn make an oversized impression upon the lives of the nuns. It's a tame story, but there is blood and gore, and surprisingly, a bit of a murder mystery, too!

“It was a dark and dank day altogether: cold spitting rain in the morning and a low, steel gray sky the rest of the afternoon.”

Two weeks ago, Jim was working as a trainman for the BRT. But he felt he should be the master of his own time, and so he took that liberty, so convinced was he of his inalienable right to refuse the constraints of time.

“Sometimes just the pleasure of being an hour or two late was enough to remind him that he, at least, was his own man, that the hours of his life—and what more precious commodity did he own? —belonged to himself alone.”

And so, he was discharged from his job, they claimed he was unreliable and defiant, unwilling to follow the rules.

His wife, Annie, cried when he shared his news, and then she shared hers: there was a baby on the way.

Jim had sent his wife to do the shopping at four, so she would be back before dark. That would give him enough time to prepare and finish his plan.

On the streets below, Sister St. Saviour, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor was on her way back to the convent after collecting alms for the poor in her basket. Despite the needs of her body, she is drawn to another building on the way, feeling called there.

”Despair had weighted the day. God Himself was helpless against it—Sister St. Saviour believed this. She believed that God held His head in His hands all the while a young man in the apartment above slipped off this gray life—collar and yoke—not for lack of love, but for the utter inability to go on, to climb, once again, out of the depths of a cold February day, a dark and waning afternoon. God wept, she believed this, even as she had gotten off her chair in the lobby of Woolworth’s an hour before her usual time, had turned onto the street where there was a fire truck, a dispersing crowd, the lamplight caught in shallow puddles, even as she had climbed the stone steps—footsore and weary and needing a toilet, but going up anyway, although no one had sent for her.”

Ordinary people, mistakes are made, their flaws are shown, but never flaunted. There’s a subtle, gentle, delicate approach to this story that sometimes made me feel as though it was being told in a whisper – but not as a secret. More as if to imbue a sense of reverence for these people, their humble lives, an aura of “there but for the grace of God go I.”

These nuns embrace them as a part of their family, Sister Saviour, Sister Illuminata, Sister Jeanne, Sister Lucy become as much a part of Sally’s life as if they were family. She sees their kindness, their desire to help others, their inner strength and their calm. Eventually, she decides she wants to be like them, to be one of them.

While this is a religious setting beginning in the early days of the 20th century, partially set in a convent, with Irish-Catholic characters in an Irish-Catholic Brooklyn neighborhood, there is more about the way of life in caring for those in need, lending aid to the indigent and needy, and very little beyond the basic concept of showing love to God by giving love to, and trying to help eliminate the suffering of, our fellow man.

This is the first Alice McDermott book I’ve read, but it won’t be my last. I loved her simple prose that contains such a sense of grace; it feels almost like a prayer for more kindness in the world.

Alice McDermott's writing was so beautiful, nuanced and detailed (so detailed a tad difficult to read at times, but so real). I felt sure in her trusted hand that it would be a story to love, and I miss the characters still -- after reading. I miss the them all. Sister Jeanne, was all sweetness, if a bit misguided with her own thoughts of Heaven about herself. Sister St. Saviour was the kind lady who tried valiantly to cover up the suicide of Annie's husband so he would be allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery. And Elizabeth Tierney who gave us a wonderful space in which there was no judgment. Thank you, Alice, for writing such a gorgeous story of Irish Brooklyn. I look forward to reading many more of your books. God bless the nuns!

Best McDermott ever! This book is beautifully written in every way. Her insights into each character are believable and original. The way she uses point of view and time scheme of the novel are somewhat experimental but also essential to the story. She invented the form she required for the novel.

Very well written, very good story, and I'm grateful to see the other side of those "mean" nuns of my youth. I was tempted to give this 4 stars since I found myself confused about "who/where/when" a few times toward the end. However, I'll write that off to my own thick skull.

I loved this book and plan to re-read it soon. Story of Catholics trying to lead exemplary lives, but facing human challenges. The nuns were especially well-crafted. I’m not Catholic but I loved them all. If you like stories about “quiet lives”, you should enjoy this story.

This book read very choppy. The main story, featuring Annie and her daughter Sally, was interesting and held my interest. However, there was back and forth with other characters that had me wondering what the point was and in some instances, which characters were being discussed.

Just like in the rest of her books, McDermott’s The Ninth Hour takes you so easily into the lives of this group of people. These characters will then stay with you after you have finished reading this novel. Wonderful book.

This is a marvelously written return to Catholic culture and lives in the 20th century that resonates deeply. It's about decent people living simple lives in mostly simpler times. It's a calming trip, full of authentic details of that era.

Felt like just a bunch of recollections. The nuns were moderately interesting, but I didn't really care about any of the characters. Maybe Irish-Catholic readers would connect more. Also, the author is guilty of the annoying habit of starting consecutive sentences with "He said:" or "She said:" So many "said"s! Worse, there are a LOT of stomach-churning descriptions. For instance, the author uses at least three different terms denoting the stuff that comes out of one's nose. Vomiting, blood, mental illness, perversion - ah, what a cheery book!

I really liked this book. I am not Catholic, and know nothing of the sacrifices nuns make for their parishioners, so I found this story and these details enlightening. Alice McDermott is a fine writer, and she keeps you interested in her books. Excellent read.

Even though this book had few reviews, with over 55% giving it high marks, in addition to McDermott’s repeated Pulitzer nominations, i had high hopes. I kept waiting for a story of substance to develop. That never happened. The characters were trite, flat, boring and just plain uninteresting and undeveloped. The topic had a lot of potential to be a good read. The saccharine sweet ending left like I’d just had too much Southern sweet tea. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.

or me this book was just okay. I would have, however, liked to have seen more of Sally and a lot less of the nuns. I think that had I'd known that most of it was taking place in a convent, I would not have requested this book.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I started this book with great expectations hoping that it would get better. I struggled to finish it. Totally disjointed, depressing, and frankly made no sense in many regards. I guess I'm just not on the same page in terms of reading with all of the people that gave it rave reviews.