Songs in Ordinary Time: A Novel

By: Mary McGarry Morris

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Synopsis: This New York Times bestseller of a troubled family in 1960s Vermont is &“teeming with incident and characters, often foolish, even nasty, but always alive&” (The New Yorker). It is the summer of 1960 in Atkinson, Vermont. With no help from her alcoholic ex-husband, Marie Fermoyle is raising three children on the edge of poverty. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, Alice, is becoming emotionally involved with a local priest in a staunchly Catholic town that disapproves of Marie&’s divorce. Alice&’s brother Norm is a hotheaded sixteen-year-old, and twelve-year-old Benjy is isolated and full of anxieties, looking with yearning at the Klubocks next door, who seem to live an orderly, peaceful life much unlike his own family&’s. Now, Marie has met a new man: Omar Duvall, who talks about opportunities and riches but so far seems only to sponge off the Fermoyles. A lonely, desperate single mother like Marie is easy prey for con men, but she resists the temptation to doubt him. Young Benjy, though, may eventually reveal a disturbing secret that could shatter all her hopes. A portrait of a family as well as a town and its secrets, Songs in Ordinary Time is &“a gritty, beautifully crafted novel rich in wisdom and suspense&” (The Miami Herald). An Oprah&’s Book Club selection from an author nominated for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, it is &“extraordinary . . . a deeply satisfying story&” (USA Today).