I read somewhere that when Alice McDermott’s novel Charming Billy was published in 1998, several MFA programs used the first chapter as a model for students in fiction workshops. there is. It’s a long 27-page chapter, as you’d expect from today’s chapter, but it’s set in a small bar in the Bronx after Billy’s funeral and is beautiful. Characterized by a broken heart, Billy Lynch died a man loved by all. Speaking of the rest of the memorial service, Mickey Quinn said, "If you knew Billy even a little bit, you loved him. The novel is narrated by Billy’s cousin’s daughter, Denise, and the story is told." loved Billy’s life and him, with a surprising revelation of a lifelong deception at the end of the first chapter. The prose is beautiful - I think McDermott’s best. Charming Billy is a novel that won’t let you go. It has certainly bothered me since I read it.