false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg 5182 17 <b>Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 1997</b>: A dark secret lies at the heart of Mary McGarry Morris's extraordinary novel, <I>Songs in Ordinary Time</I>. Rooted in the delicate web of emotions, lies, and truths that bind people together, the story takes place in the primarily Catholic town of Atkinson, Vermont, during the summer of 1960. Here Marie Fermoyle struggles to raise her three children. She already has two strikes against her: she married above her station and now is divorced from her alcoholic husband, Sam. That he is the town drunk and a laughingstock only further marks the Fermoyles.<P> Enter Omar Duvall, a confidence man. He comes to the door asking for bread and sees an opportunity. Soon he has insinuated himself into the Fermoyle family, promising Marie companionship, love, a willing pair of shoulders to share her burden. Twelve-year-old Benjy knows something terrible about Duvall, but, desperate for anything that will make his mother happy, he hides the truth. This silence gives Duvall time to bring Marie to the brink of financial disaster and lead her sons into mortal danger.<P> <I>Songs in Ordinary Time</I> includes a chorus of other Atkinson inhabitants: town cop Sonny Stoner and his dying wife; insurance salesman Bob Haddad, so enthralled with his beautiful wife that he's willing to steal for her; and Father Gannon, the young priest with whom Marie's daughter Alice becomes involved; and the Klubock family next door, who epitomize all that is normal to young Benjy. With these lives threaded through her bittersweet tale of the Fermoyles, Morris strikes all the notes of loneliness, hope, and familial love. 846655 1995 Songs in Ordinary Time (Oprah's Book Club) total:1421|5:195|4:409|3:516|2:226|1:75| 1421 4686 2048 143 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 2 1 false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 18 08:38:49 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 18 08:38:49 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 3 1 false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 06 09:18:18 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 16 18:14:12 -0700 2007
The characters are interesting.

The plot is believable.

The town is realistic.

And all of it is incredibly, incredibly depressing.

Not *one* single person in the entire book has a good life. Or even a reasonably happy one ...more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 4 0 false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Jan 03 13:26:12 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 13:26:22 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 4 0 false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 09:26:21 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 09:45:41 -0700 2009
I hesistantly picked it up - 740 pages of bleakness is what I first thought. What can I say, I've read enough of Oprah's picks to know that sometimes the jou...more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 4 0 false Sat Jul 25 08:18:54 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 08:29:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 1 1 false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Feb 22 20:17:27 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 22 20:19:00 -0800 2008 1489586 1857024095 9781857024098 4 1 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184171703m/1489586.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1489586.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 3 0 false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sat Mar 07 01:54:23 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 02:28:41 -0800 2009 depressing. Not something to read if you're looking for a good time.

It reminds me of a song by Patty Griffin, Poor Man's House. The stories are different but the themes are the same for me...difficult to break the cycles of life into which we're born and unbelieva...more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 1 1 false Sat Feb 23 11:05:59 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 27 19:46:04 -0800 2008 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 2 1 false Thu Jan 03 10:18:25 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 10:19:47 -0800 2008 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 1 1 false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 23 17:26:25 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 31 21:11:41 -0700 2008 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 2 0 false Thu Apr 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 10 17:08:26 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 10 17:20:54 -0700 2008
This is a story about the disfunctional Fermoyle family, and their quirk...more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 5 0 false Tue Feb 24 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 08 10:35:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 15 11:40:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 2 0 false Sun Dec 21 04:19:01 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 04:28:55 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 4 0 false Sun Sep 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 10:31:41 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 20:08:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 4 0 false Mon Jul 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 03:28:32 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 03:35:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 4 0 false Mon Apr 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 15 16:09:05 -0800 2008 Mon Apr 14 19:03:32 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 1 0 false Sat Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 18:26:17 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 06 11:55:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 1 0 false Sat Feb 28 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 28 20:38:35 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 28 20:39:42 -0800 2009
By the time I finished, I yearned...more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 5 0 false Thu Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Wed Jul 11 18:50:01 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 11 18:50:44 -0700 2007 Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris is about a family touched by alcoholism, the Fermoyles. The father is a ne'er-do-well drunk as well and as totally unlovable as can be. He is obnoxious and sloppy and violent when he's drunk and Marie Fermoyle had to get herself out of that marriage to...more...]]> 5182 0140244824 9780140244823 1363 137 3.30 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518107m/5182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5182.Songs_in_Ordinary_Time 2 0 false Sat Jul 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 07:02:22 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 07:03:34 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5182