Charming Billy Post One

 Note: I no longer have a computer that can connect to the internet, so I had to write this on my phone. That means that I have to battle auto correct and Swype at times to get the right words. I may have missed some incorrect words while proofreading this.

    The author attempts to fully engage her reader throughout the book, especially in the beginning. A method she uses early on is providing a lot of background information in a short period of time. This is particularly prevalent in the passage "And if you loved him, we all knew, you pleaded with him at some point. Or you drove him to AA, waited outside the church till the meeting was over, and drove him home again. Or you advanced him whatever you could afford so he could travel to Ireland to take the pledge. If you loved him, you took his car keys away, took his incoherent phone calls after midnight. You banished him from your house until he could show up sober. You saw the bloody scraps of flesh he cited up into his drinks. If you loved him, then you told him at some point that he was killing himself and felt the way his indifference rip poured through your affection. You left work really to identify his body at the VA, and instead of being grateful that the ideal was at long last over, you felt a momentary surge of joy as you turned away: This was not Billy, it was somecolored man" (page 7). In this paragraph, the author tells the reader the story of Billy 's alcoholism and of the roles the members of the funeral party played in this aspect of his life. By giving the reader this background information all at once very early on, the author throws them into the story immediately. Although she gives the reader a lot of information, the author does it quickly and without much detail. She only gives the reader a general idea of what happened. This leaves the reader curious, and makes them want to keep reading to learn the stories of everything she quickly mentioned.
     As McDermott is giving the reader this information, she uses the word "you" throughout the passage, saying things like "if you loved him," "you banished him from your house," and "his indifference ripped through your affection." This makes the reader feel as if they were part of the funeral party and had experienced these things. This draws more emotion from the reader than it would have if the author had not written the passage this way. This creates a stronger emotional attachment to the story and characters for the reader, making them more invested in the book.
     By doing these things in a passage at the very beginning of the book, McDermott ensures that the reader will stay invested in the story throughout the rest of the book.