That Night

by Alice McDermott

During the sixties in Long Island, Rick and Sheryl are high-school sweethearts and, when Sheryl becomes pregnant, must struggle against the strict conventions of their time to prevent their love from being destroyed

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Coming Of Age, Romance, Young Adult, Contemporary

183 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Alice McDermott (born June 27, 1953) is Johns Hopkins University's Writer-in-Residence. Born in Brooklyn, New York, McDermott attended St. Boniface School in Elmont, Long Island, NY [1967], Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead NY [1971], the State University of New York at Oswego, receiving her BA in 1975, and later received her MA from the University of New Hampshire in 1978.

She has taught at the UCSD and American University, has been a writer-in-residence at Lynchburg and Hollins Colleges in Virginia, and was lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire. Her short stories have appeared in Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, and Seventeen.

The 1987 recipient of a Whiting Writers Award, and three-time Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nominee, lives outside Washington, with her husband, a neuroscientist, and three children.

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

If it wasn’t for what happened that night, it would have been an ordinary night, on this ordinary street in a New York City suburb in the early 1960’s. It’s about more than just that night when violence came to this street, when a young man comes looking for his teenage girlfriend, obsessed or perhaps just in love, when the husbands and fathers decide to come out of their houses. It’s about what came before it and what will come after that night. The writing is unbelievably clear and descriptive, without any excess. McDermott lets us know just how things were in this particular time and place, but yet in many ways these things are timeless - pregnancy juxtaposed with not being able to conceive a third child or at all, mental illness, death, loss and grief. These are some of the things affecting the families here and reflect for me what is so exceptional about McDermott’s story telling. These are ordinary people, some of whom we might know and perhaps we even see ourselves.

The narrative moves from that night to the time before and after it, seamlessly. The before and after giving us insight into the actions and reactions of what happened. It is mainly from the perspective of a ten year old girl, but then relating the thoughts of a number of characters from the street whom we come to know. At times we are made privy to the future. If you are looking for an action packed plot, this is not one for you. It’s the quiet introspection about the things that life brings that appeals to me. This is what Alice McDermott gives us and she does it beautifully without a wasted word. I’m a little sad after finishing this story, not for the sad moments here, but because I have now read and loved all of McDermott’s novels and I don’t have another waiting in the wings. She is one of my favorite writers and I’m hoping she has another coming.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a night! The night Rick and his friends came to bay at the moon and brought some chains with them to help.

Although there was some (more than a few specific departures from my own experiences of neighborhood at exactly the same time and with McDermott that has NOT been at all true before on 4 other books)- this one seems fairly spot on for the mix that was Alice's. And Sheryl's and Rick's. And the neighborhood connections and mores. People were far more entwined and they did care for each other. They did in dozens and dozens of multitudes by me- many, many more people in known quantity. Just like this. And it wasn't only in suburbia "prime" land either. The sort where the bedrooms were 9 x 10 feet and mostly held two beds for ALL the kids.

Another Alice McDermott book here which illuminates a world gone. Some disdain it to high heaven, seeing only the insular aspects. It was far, far from insular- in fact quite the opposite in my experience. I saw it all as a kid- especially in the death and dying categories. People were not shipped off to homes or hospitals. And this story tells a situation which illustrates the "us" vs "them" slant of social purposes (consequences all) and connections then. Mine was city on very small lots but post-WWII built in 1947 exactly. More people but quite similar-and not at all unlike this 10 year old's memorial of the "Mom's" and the "Dad's" roles. And aftermath of outcomes when there was "trouble". And open doors and kids all over the place outside. Long, long gone even before the bars appeared in all the ground floor windows. Even lost to most memory now. I truly did laugh at her summation that the sidewalk was not "Dad territory"- not for walking or hanging out- neither of which they would ever commence for either usual purpose. Dads worked. It filled their hours and to get anywhere they took the single car. And THAT NIGHT they crossed it AND the street.

To me it lost a star in the context of putting her father's death as the pivot for Sheryl's "recklessness" and push to a "not forgetting" in order to make it worthy, make it love. It was "too easy" IMHO as a rather cop out for the crux of this issue. Fearlessness is one thing, but to have it negate most IQ points for a girl, as it does here in Sheryl's case? Maybe my time where I was- because it happened to be so much more physically daunting? Everyone's coming of age then that I observed was changed to other sensibilities than this so basic simplistic reasoning about FEELING? LOVE that boy, but never trust him to prevent outcomes! Go for a walk in the park that is 2 doors away but not alone, nor with your head in the sky dreaming about stars! It bothers me a bit that as close to the core as Alice McDermott gets, she seems to always have her teen girls in love go starry eyed and within anywhere near "sigh territory" lose all their brain functions other than skin feel within/ during their processes of coming of age.

This one brings the Rick picture with his fists on this thighs into a perfect light. That was 5 star in a portrayal of the male of his period.

This story made me think of St. Vincent's in Chicago. And of my Aunt and Uncle who had their lives fulfilled by the two babies that they got there later in life when they thought parenthood would never be theirs.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an old standby of mine. I reread it yet again over the weekend. Indeed, it feels like a favorite song from the very first line:

"When he came to claim her, he stood on the short lawn before her house, his knees bent, his fists driven into his thighs, and bellowed her name with such passion that even the friends who surrounded him, who had come to support him, to drag her from the house, to murder her family if they had to, let the chains they carried go limp in their hands."

That Night comes from the land of the Shirelles and Shangri-Las, from greasers and Springsteen. And, of course, from the deeps of American myth and relentless, heedless teenage love — all in McDermott's pitch-perfect suburban Long Island milieu.

You can finish it in an afternoon. And then, if you're lucky, it might just stay with you forever.

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Floreat Suburbia

I lived in this neighbourhood at this point in history. And I never thought the cultural desolation and dislocation that I remember of that time and place could be redeemed. Alice McDermott in That Night and in Charming Billy has given me cause to doubt my existential prejudices. Perhaps the treeless, soulless streets of 1950's NYC suburbs provide material of general worth to ponder. As of now I am amazed at McDermott's ability to simply describe what the time and place were like. That's enough to be getting on with.

[Amy B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hunted down this out-of-print book for a while before I got my hands on a "brand new" copy, and I was a little disappointed. I made the mistake of seeing (and loving) the movie first; in fact it was on HBO all the time when I was about the narrator's age on "that night," and I would watch it repeatedly. I haven't seen it in about 15 years, and one day it just occurred to me to read the book. I thought there would be drama and romance and a lot more about the relationship between Sheryl and Alice; how in the movie Alice looked up to Sheryl so much she almost wanted to be her. There was none of that in the book; in fact there's only one section where we get a glimpse of the interaction between the two girls, which is somewhat enlightening but leaves you wanting more. The rest focuses half on Sheryl and half on the lives of the parents in the neighborhood.

The book and movie are hardly recognizable as the same thing -- to say the movie is "loosely based" on the book is an understatement and then some. So, if you're like me and basically want the film in print form, don't bother. This book could be appreciated for its prose. Even though it's a straight-forward premise, it's a difficult read, teetering on poetry when I was looking for a novel.

[Benjy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't fully explain why but this is probably favorite book I've read in the past year or so. I'm still troubled by how the narration works (there's no way she can know much of what she tells) and sometimes the fragmentation would push me out of the proper headspace. But the language! The little vignettes that could stand on their own as wholly satisfying reading experiences! Everyone has experienced teen angst and yet this book enabled this reader to experience it freshly and as a source of exhilaration, not misery. That's probably because this book isn't about teen angst but is about adult regret.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this book on a shelf for a while and picked it up because I didn't have a library book and thought it would bridge the time until one came in. What a surprise this little book packed! I couldn't put it down once I started. The author mixes large, profound themes with ordinary life, permeating barriers like the walls of houses, even the walls of lives and individual thought with a narrative that floats like a ghost over an ordinary suburban neighborhood of the 1960s. Love, death, longing, sadness, and joy--it's all here and finds its story in an incident one summer night when a teenage boy comes looking for a teenage girl in that neighborhood and violence erupts. But that's not the story. It's the before and after of the couple and of the neighborhood, and it's all of the stories that the people bring to it, so seemingly similar in their similar houses on their ordinary street.

[Joan Winnek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading everything by Alice McDermott I can get my hands on, and this early novel did not disappoint. Both sad and funny. Wonderful writing. The chapter just before the beginning of Part Two, pp. 107-114 in the hardback edition, contains one of the funniest conversations ever, and bunch of children sharing their inaccurate knowledge of how a pregnancy occurs.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

That Night is a novel that focused mainly on one violent night in a suburban community in the early sixties. When Sheryl is suddenly shipped off to live with her aunt and uncle due to an unplanned pregnancy, her boyfriend Rick and his friends (in an attempt to rescue her) clash with the older generation of the neighborhood as their children watch.

Told mostly through the viewpoint of 10-year-old Alice (one of Sheryl's neighbors) at different points in her life, the novel's telling branches off from that night, filling us in on more and more of the characters' lives.

I thought that this novel really captured the essence of teen pregnancy in the sixties (that is: make it disappear) and the relationship portrayed between Sheryl and Rick was moving and wistful in the way that first loves are (no matter how doomed or improbable or naive they may be).

When Sheryl was robotically sewing maternity clothes from patterns at her aunt and uncle's house, I just wanted to give her a big hug.

Interesting: apparently this novel was made into a movie (in 1992) starring C. Thomas Howell as Rick and Juliette Lewis as Sheryl. Eliza Dushku (from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") played Alice, and even Katherine Heigl (from "Grey's Anatomy" is in it as a minor character (in her first role). I thought I might want to see it, but of course they completely changed the ending to a much happier one (I read the IMDB synopsis).

I hate that.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My last read of 2021 and a wonderful short novel it was.

This novel is ostensibly about suburbia of the 1960s and is lyrically drawn. The plot device is a teenage pregnancy and while this may seem cliched, it is the rendering of the other uncomfortable situations that are notable. The other looming problems in the community are common; health issues. A father of a teenager dies of a heart attack, a mother of cancer. Then how do the mothers, families and the community respond to a ne'er-do-well boyfriend in jail and the girl he gets pregnant.

While this novel was written by Alice McDermott back in 1987, it does not feel dated. The narrator is discussing events that happened twenty years earlier in the timeline so the nostalgia and history is already baked in.

5 stars.

[Megan Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is now the fourth Alice McDermott book I've read. I question why, since they aren't ones I have loved. Then again, it may be because I first read some of her more recent works, that I quite enjoyed, while what's crossed my reading list lately are her first two books, and I definitely don't like them as much.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Ann Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can see why this novel is much loved by authors of craft books about fiction writing. There's so much to admire about this book. The story is compelling, the characters are well developed, and the writing itself is beautiful. I love the fact that the narrative is rich in ideas and that there's a redemptive undercurrent to this story. Yes, a lot of terrible things happen, but all is not lost. Love is not lost.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strangely, as I don't recall it, I have previously read one of McDermott's novels, but her recent nonfiction foray - What About the Baby, about the art of fiction writing - thoroughly engaged me, and I wanted to read something else by her. That Night was recommended to me and it's marvelous. About something small, the doomed love affair between two teenagers, Rick and Sheryl, it captures a time and place and social era, the early 1960s in a suburban town. And the doomed love affair expands far beyond the two young lovers, widely reverberates, with existential vibrations and consequences felt by all of the neighbors, as well as the first person narrator, a young girl of 10 when the events occur. She is looking back at that night, that summer, from a future vantage point, and though she can't know all that she tells us, we believe and remain utterly convinced throughout. "That night" is when Rick (along with his friends in their rumbling cars) tries to find Sheryl, who wasn't in school, wasn't at work, doesn't come to the phone, and she said she would love him forever, and nothing else but the two of them matters, they have a bond forged by what each is suffering - Rick has a mentally ill mother, Sheryl's father has suddenly died. That night will prove a point of departure, for the narrator's fertile imagination that comes alive then, for the families on the block that have believed certain things about their lives and behaved accordingly, and more. The doom of those teenage lovers is elegiac, not only in terms of their love, but also for the narrator's childhood, the childhood of all the other kids on the block, and the fears not yet considered by mothers and fathers that their own young daughters might eventually go the way of Sheryl. The tone of that doom filters through the novel, written with spare prose and great acuity.

[Padraic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hung up on this woman once. She's a wonderful writer, and a nice human being - even if you hang up on her. I read this while working at the Westport Public Library, the first serious work of literary fiction I read since bombing out of grad school ten years earlier. Her evocation of growing up in the Catholic suburbs, and of long summer evenings dominated by the sounds of parents and kids, made me realize I didn't hate literature, despite failing at academia. Thank you, Alice.

[Christiane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an early Alice McDermott (1987) book which I missed somehow, until a website of favorite books urged me to read it. I do believe this is a perfect novel. It is short (I read it in two days), compelling, and beautifully written.
Of course, I remember, and relate, to this era--perhaps a younger generation would not truly understand it.

[Harriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so moved by this novel, the way it grows so quietly, and spreads among various points of view, various characters, so that you go deeper and deeper into the story of one night. Her deftness with voice stuns me, and I'm trying to learn from it.

[Heather ~*dread mushrooms*~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw the movie of this on TV like, a really long time ago. I want to watch it now, since I remember nothing about it, but there's no way I'm paying $20 for a VHS tape.

Anyway, I just found out about the book. And my library has it. *REQUESTED*

[David Gallin-Parisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found myself re-reading pages 35-55 and felt everything was too repeated, boring, and dazed. I did not enjoy this book at first. McDermott writes with really long sentences, using lots of commas and junctions from clause to clause. Then I decided to read this like a diary, and enjoy the long sentences. They're attempts to describe everything, from a person's perspective who sees almost everything there is to see. Views from one night in a small suburb, the events that led up to that night, and the course lives take way afterward. I discovered life-changing issues of pregnancy, parenting, neighborhoods, adolescence, sex, death, and growing up. I also found myself thinking about today's young adult lit, and how many of these issues are what are featured in young adult books, except it's not like this. There is too much delayed pain, too much learning about sex, too much struggling with parents, too much growing, and too much loss for That Night to be an actual young adult book. The themes are the same, but told from further away. I can't see young adults getting into this book, but maybe I'm wrong. Everything is seen much later than adolescence, yet captures so many teenager-specific moments. Sleeping overnight in a car, asking, "Can I go now?", and calling friends but speaking to parents. McDermott grasps for multiple ages to depict and succeeds. I loved the many stretches of boring suburban linkage, landscapes, and living - what connects much of this book together. And I always love distraught suburban details. Also the design of this book is superb, with THAT NIGHT spread across two pages on every folded out opening. McDermott's lengthy sentences look good in this thin-sized, full-timed volume.

[Dianeparente62gmail.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing book for those of a certain age who remember when, who experienced summer life in the New York suburbs in the early 60's. The story revolves around two star-crossed teenagers whose burdensome back- grounds draw them into love, sex and pregnancy at which point they are governed by outside forces. "That Night" refers to the night unlike any night when the boyfriend and his tough guy friends arrive at the girlfriend's house, demanding to see her. She has been shipped out of town and the boys, armed with chains,get physical and the men of the neighborhood arrive armed with bats, hoes, etc. and all hell breaks loose. The story then shuttles between present and past providing the author with ample opportunity for character and social insights. It is her observations of a slice of time past that make the book interesting and worthwhile.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erin, I know this isn't your usual style but I think you'd enjoy it. It's short, gripping, and extremely well written. The action (boy meets girl, boy looses girl) is narrated by a neighbor girl who is 10 on That Night, and the picture of childhood through her eyes reminds me a little of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. But the narrator also gives us glimpses of her grown-up life and how things turned out for her family and other families in their neighborhood. The book is full of reflections on what it means to love, what lasts, what matters, mothering, and romance. I love the way That Night is woven through the whole book, yet the author managed to gracefully unfold the before, after, and during so skillfully. Great story, well written, I recommend it.

[Caroline Cottom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a delight to read. I was charmed by it. I loved the structure, with the entire book turning on "that night," everything moving backward or forward from that event. I also loved McDermott's writing, which I find hard to describe. She writes with a light touch, using fresh, unexpected descriptions. After I read the book, I went to some of my other favorite books to compare the writing styles. McDermott won, hands down.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book seems a bit like a stereotype that was just written up as opposed to fleshed out, but it has a charm that makes up for that somewhat. I would have like It differentiated from the generic more, but I still enjoyed reading it quite a bit. I have to admit that.

[Bonnie Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this little book. I like Alice McDermott. I read "Charming Billy" a few years ago and liked it.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

That Night is Alice McDermott's second novel, published in 1987 when she was thirty-four. A finalist for the National Book Award, That Night contains the hallmarks of her six later novels.

A blurb could easily be written about That Night describing an ordinary novel about an ordinary early 1960s situation, set in an ordinary suburb with ordinary characters, and written in ordinary, colloquial American English. No trips to the dictionary to understand McDermott's sentences, no Googling to understand McDermott's mentions of events or places.* Just everyday American English and everyday American people and everyday American events.

That Night revolves around three characters: Sheryl, an unremarkable but seemingly self-assured high school girl; Rick, an unremarkable, slightly oafish high school boy who's the leader of his pack; and a younger neighbor girl, who recounts the story. And the story? Girl falls for boy, boy falls for girl, the usual occurs between them with the usual unwanted result, and, as was then common, girl is shipped out in the middle of night to relatives in another town to save her and her family from shame. Younger neighbor girl recounts her memories of what occurred, baked within her memories of about ten years later, and younger neighborhood girl brings us up to date on what's happened since then to the two high school lovers. Nothing remarkable here, just move on to another novel with less quotidian characters, situations, and language? Ah, but what a mistake that would be. Because McDermott's genius lies in uncovering the unexpected within the expected of the ordinary; revealing the humanity within even the most oafish and unappealing characters; giving meaning to even seemingly trivial memories; and writing simple, direct, unadorned, and beautiful prose. Here's an example: "Our fathers. They were still dark-haired then, and handsome. Their bruised arms were still strong under their rolled shirt sleeves, their chests still broad under their T-shirts. They had fought wars and come home to love their wives and sire their children; they had laid out fifteen thousand dollars to shelter them. They had grown housebound and too cautious, as shy as infants, but now, heady with the taste of their own blood, with the new expansion of their territory, the recalled camaraderie of men joined in battle, they were ready to take up this new challenge, were ready to save us, their daughters, from the part of love that was painful and tragic and violent, from all that we had already, even then, set our hearts on."

Alice McDermott strikes me as a novelist and connoisseur of the ordinary. McDermott mines her character's memories, finding additional layers of meaning through those memories in remembered people and events. Both as a novelist of the ordinary and as a novelist of memories, McDermott reminds me most of Alice Munro. (Of course, McDermott writes novels and Munro writes short stories. In a recent reading that I attended, McDermott made a comment that I remember, perhaps incorrectly, to the effect that poets stand at the top of a hierarchy of literary stylists, above short story writers, and with both poets and short story writers standing above novelists.) Despite McDermott's now thirty-five years of writing, her publishing eight novels, and her awards and literary accolades, she's still an underappreciated novelist.

*Well, perhaps a little Googling for readers who aren't Americans of about McDermott's age: chinos, Chevys, Buicks, Bermuda shorts, T-shirts, and, my favorite, "an enormous Sergeant Bilko grin."

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved "Charming Billy" but this book was no Charming Billy. I guess you'd describe it as a period piece. Set in suburbia in the 1950's, it tells the story of a high school girl who gets pregnant. Her mother hustles her off to an aunt's house in Ohio and the boyfriend ( a hoodlum, as we used to call them in the 50's) gets insanely mad and goes to the mother's house and assaults her. The neighborhood fathers decide to take action and a fight ensues between the dads and the boyfriend's gang of fellow hoodlums. All of this takes place with chains and rocks and baseball bats in the front yards of the suburb. The narrator, one of the neighborhood girls is a young observer who watches and wonders what it all means.

[Delfi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me encantó este relato de un recuerdo. Lo recomiendo especialmente para aquellos que busquen leer sobre duelo y coming of age.

[Ananya · Rating 2 out of 5]

there were/are more pressing matters in the world than an over-sexualized teenage girl - even in the 60s

[MaryMargaret Sell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up this book randomly in a used bookshop and it totally surprised me!! She covers so much of love and grief through the lens of a singular night in the 1960’s suburbs.

Also gave me major writer’s envy … one of the best signs.

“They had gone to Ohio, we were certain of it. And we named the state as if it were another dimension. Ohio. They sound of it shaped like a drain, a well, like a mouth that had opened to receive them. Ohio.”

“What she couldn’t have known, in her sympathy, her easy wisdom, was how the girl had linked her father and Rick, the way she had determined to love them. She couldn’t have known that for Sheryl, bereft as she was, peace was annihilation and to say that love could fade, that loss could heal, was to admit forever that there would be no return of the dead.”

[Karolyn Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chapter one of this novel was assigned to me by a writing teacher as an example of a "promising" novel opening. In deed, the opening chapter presented an intriguing situation and left me with many questions about the rest of the story. So I bought the book. In brief, THAT NIGHT is about a teenage couple in the early 60s that is torn apart after the girl gets pregnant and sent away.

Published in 1987, THAT NIGHT by Alice McDermott, is one of the rare books where the narrator is not the protagonist. The most famous example of this technique is F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY. In that book, the protagonist, Jay Gatsby, dies before the end of the story—thus the reason he can't be the narrator. McDermott gives us crumbs of personal information about her chosen narrator (a young neighbor-girl who remains unnamed throughout), so little information, in fact, it made me beg for more, it made me keep reading to find out why this particular girl is telling the story. (We don't even know she's a girl until late in Chapter one.) By the end, I was disappointed that my questions were not answered satisfactorily. There are nothing more than vague reasons why this girl is telling the story. It feels forced, as if McDermott simply wanted to attempt a story like The Great Gatsby.

McDermott sprinkles this novel with some beautiful, astute observations and clever ticks of humanity, though to pull them out of context to list them here would diminish their impact. My biggest issue with this novel was the POV. The narrator, the young neighbor, tells the story in an omniscient point of view. She tells us the story with God-like knowledge, getting in the minds and lives of the other characters, knowledge she simply couldn't know unless she was the protagonist's psychiatrist or pastor or ultimate best friend. She ends up being nothing more than a neighbor on that crucial night. I think McDermott should have either eliminated the narrator, or given us her viewpoint, not an omniscient voice.

Ultimately, I feel this was a failed attempt at a challenging literary technique.

Three Stars

[A. Mussbacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting narrative choice. The story is told from the ten year old girl who lives across the street. Innovative, but I'm not sure it works in some cases. I found myself pausing to ask how she can know the things she knows...

The story is slow to start, and the story jumps around a specific event. If I wasn't urging the narrator to get on with it, I was wondering where I was relative to 'that night.' I enjoyed the POV changes when we finally get to see into Sheryl's perspective, but it raised questions as to whether the original choice of the ten-year-old narrator was a good one. Even with the ending being what it was.

As for the ending, I felt it was a bit lackluster. There are some wonderful moments, but they are fleeting, few and far in between.

Even now I'm wondering why the narrator chose to look back on 'that night' and focused so much on the relationship of Sheryl and Rick. I wanted more dynamic between Sheryl and Alice (the narrator), and why Alice seems so fascinated with the teenager's lives. The star-struck, tragic romance doesn't seem to do it for me. I'm searching for a stronger link.