An ordinary life --- its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion --- lived by an ordinary, but unforgettable woman: this is the subject of SOMEONE, Alice McDermott’s extraordinary seventh novel.

We first glimpse Marie Commeford as a child: a girl in thick glasses observing her pre-Depression world from a Brooklyn stoop. Through her first heartbreak and eventual marriage; her delicate brother’s brief stint as a Catholic priest and his emotional breakdown; her career as a funeral director’s “consoling angel”; the deaths of her parents and the births of her children --- we follow Marie through the changing world of the 20th century and her Irish-American enclave. Rendered with remarkable empathy and insight, SOMEONE is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived, with passion and heartbreak, a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.