The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott Acclaimed Novelist & Pulitzer Prize Finalist

Alice McDermott is an esteemed American novelist.  She's received won the Nat'l Book, twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize & received the Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in Amer. Lit.  McDermott is a writer of grace and remarkable insight.  Born in America (1953) McDermott's novel share a commonality of Irish immigrants coming to the US.  "The Ninth Hour" is set prior to the turn of the 19th C in Brooklyn, NY bustling around a Catholic Convent whose Sisters altruistic charitable acts in their community helped care for the poor & misfortunate.  The Sisters maintained a certainty that all human loss would be restored.  The Catholic Church also believed in their responsibility to dole out punishments for those who strayed from the strict rules of the Church, committed sins and failed to be cleansed by confession.  The clever narrative comes from scores of voices in McDermott's theological liturgy.  Some may consider the novel sacrosanct but the majority will find her observations sagacious, satirical & credible.  The nuns who've chosen a celibate, sacrificing life to serve others are cognizant of the many rules of the Church, demands of the city and requirements of polite society.   Annie "Mc-something" finds herself in an unbearable situation at the start of the novel.  She is widowed by her husband's suicide and expecting a child.  The Sisters swoop in and see to her care & future welfare.  They provide Annie with employment doing laundry for the Church.  The Church becomes a haven for Annie & her daughter Sally who is raised within the Church.  This leads Sally to have a discernment towards becoming a nun. But, she realizes she's not destined for the lonely life of hard labor & long sacrifice.  Annie's best friend, Mrs. Tierney believed "that any woman who chose to spend a celibate life toiling for strangers was, by necessity a little peculiar."  Yet, she holds an adamant & grateful belief in the fact of heaven. The Sisters believed without doubt that all human loss would be restored.  Perhaps, not surprisingly, their compassion & patience fails even them in their love for God's people which couldn't outweigh their disdain for their stupidity, selfishness and sins.  McDermott's meme of immigrants' single-minded resolve towards moving up in the world is recurring theme in her novels.   This novel has a minor character who served in the Civil War for another man (Mr. Tierney's father); a one-time opportunity allotted the wealthy.  The Catholic Sister's answering the call to sanctity and self-sacrifice, the delusion and superstition it required from the world during this epoch, were fading and a dying breed even then.  What continues to blur the line between holiness and morality is the absolution of heinous behaviors based on one's justifications rather than societal laws.  "The Nine Hour" is written with a gleaming virtuosity that never cleanses the unrelenting wash of man's filth, misery & inhumanity.  As Sister Lucy told Sally said "Never waste your sympathy.  Never think for a minute that you will erase all suffering from the world."