I had no idea where it would begin, or if it would be a novel. I didn't know the facts. I had to let the voice take over. The story emerged out of the suburb where Ms. McDermott's parents, a Con Edison worker and a secretary-housewife, came to raise their children away from the city. The Carpenters lived in their basement because the rest of their house was too beautiful to bear.
Long Island is a wonderful place to grow up.
Ms. McDermott evokes the sense of violence, beyond its acts and facts, that infuses ''ordinary'' life. She also explores the ways of love and death beyond their function in a teen-age romance, whether love can last forever though its temporal realities may change. Ms. McDermott takes her tale beyond the precincts of journalistic reporting or surburban soap opera into the halls of legend or myth. In person, Ms. McDermott is quiet, nice-girl nice, without pretension. Both of her novels were reviewed on the first page of The New York Times Book Review.