Songs in Ordinary Time

by Mary McGarry Morris

Songs in Ordinary Time is set in the summer of 1960 - the last of quiet times and America's innocence. It centers on Marie Fermoyle, a strong but vulnerable woman whose loneliness and ambition for her children make her easy prey for the dangerous con man Omar Duvall. Marie's children are Alice, seventeen - involved with a troubled young priest; Norm, sixteen - hotheaded and idealistic; and Benjy, twelve - isolated and misunderstood, and so desperate for his mother's happiness that he hides the deadly truth only he knows about Duvall. Among a fascinating cast of characters we meet the children's alcoholic father, Sam Fermoyle, now living with his senile mother and embittered sister; Sam's meek brother-in-law, who makes anonymous "love" calls from the bathroom of his ailing appliance store; and the Klubock family, who - in complete contrast to the Fermoyles - live an orderly life in the perfect house next door.

An Oprah Winfrey Book Club pick.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club, Novels, Historical

740 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

About the author

Mary McGarry Morris is an American novelist, short story author and playwright from New England. She uses its towns as settings for her works. In 1991, Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times described Morris as "one of the most skillful new writers at work in America today"; The Washington Post has described her as a "superb storyteller"; and The Miami Herald has called her "one of our finest American writers".
She has been most often compared to John Steinbeck and Carson McCullers. Although her writing style is different, Morris also has been compared to William Faulkner for her character-driven storytelling. She was a finalist for the National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. As of 2011, Morris has published eight novels, some of which were best-sellers, and numerous short stories. She also has written a play about the insanity trial of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Reviews

[Laurel Wicke · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is about the time I quit reading Oprah's bookclub books. I want to slash my own wrists after reading most of them. I mean a steady diet of tragedy is just too much.

[Nomanisan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, my. I absolutely detested this book; I finished merely because I HAD to get finished with it so that I could put it away. Morris has created a world in which no one is free of some warping or embittering experience except the family next door to the protagonists, and they are presented in such cliched, matchstick form as to be beyond credibility--they exist merely as a balance to the pitiful main family and the characters who attach to them in an ever-widening series of cracks in the society of the small town in which they live. If her point is that we all have weaknesses, in the vein of "there but for the grace of God...," I get it--but I entirely reject the apparent observation that everyone (with the exception of the unrealistically portrayed next-door neighbor) is twisted--not just flawed, but twisted. I do get the idea that Morris apparently thinks she is making, that Marie Fermoyle (the central character) is actually strong, pulling something from nothing, from the disaster that her life has been--but the novel is distasteful to me almost from the start. There were times while I was reading it that I wanted to get up and wash my hands.
So--Oprah recommendation or no, I thoroughly dislike this book and recommend it to NO ONE--unless you just want to see for yourself, and that's exactly what I would do after I read such a repudiation.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Songs is well written.

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 -- or a shot at happiness, at that. And the fact that it's well written does nothing to help the fact that it's painful to read about these pitiful little lives in this pitiful little town.

Even though it's set a decade and a half before my birth, maybe it just all rings too familiar. But I literally had to force myself to finish it.

The only good thing? I'm now done.

[Dionne Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, Oprah! Whatever did you see in this book? Only because of my hard-and-fast rule that I must finish reading every book I start, did I complete "Songs in Ordinary Time". Had the book been capped at, say, 300 pages it might have been, at least, moderately tolerable. At page 600, I was ready to physically hurt people . . . and there were still 152 pages to go! I'm truly at a loss for even one kind word to say about this book. The whole thing was fraught with far too many characters, many with woefully incomplete story lines, and every one of them needed to be medicated and could benefit from more than a few hours on a therapist's couch. I think I registered only two emotions reading this book - neither good. It was dark, depressing, and oftentimes confusing as hell. The writing was awkwardly bad. And what was up with the creepy old sister living with the dead judge for weeks in his room in the sisters' boarding house? Nobody smelled anything? And nobody clears out a JUDGE's room of personal and professional papers when he dies? Give me a break. Implausible and totally unbelievable. Oy Vey! I dunno, maybe it's a Vermont thing? Hey, it's the holidays . . . if you've got people you hate on your gift list this year, give them this book. Otherwise, avoid at all costs.

[Carrie Kellenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic story! I am so surprised to read all of the negative reviews here. I thought the novel was beautifully written, and I enjoyed every last word of it. It took some time to get through, but Morris held my attention for two weeks with her wonderful, in depth characters and story telling. All of the characters are tragically despondent and intricately entwined with each another, all of them constantly moving away from one another only to come to a full circle in the end.

The story focuses on a single mother and her drunk ex-husband, the con man she brings into her home, her three children and their friends and classmates; Joey Selden the popcorn man, Sonny, Blue Mooney, Renie and Helen. These characters were just some of the stories that swirled through the narrative.

All in all, Songs in Ordinary Time was a brilliant read, and it joins a short list of books that I reread on a regular basis.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Character-driven novel about the people living in a small town in Vermont in 1960. The storyline revolves around a con artist involved in an act of violence, who hides in plain sight by taking advantage of a lonely divorcee. The woman is supporting three children with no help from her alcoholic ex-husband. The story branches out to cover numerous people residing in the town, including the police chief and his family, the former police chief (now blind) that runs a popcorn stand, a dishonorably discharged marine trying to get his life back on track, an insurance salesman with financial issues, and many more.

None of the main characters are very likeable and it would have been nice to have at least one or two in such a large cast of characters. Surely the entire town isn’t populated with unpleasant people. It was a struggle to keep reading this at times. I kept waiting for a bright spot. There are a few small glimmers of hope, but not many.

Here’s a sampling of primary characters:
- A con artist selling pipe dreams to people that can’t afford much of anything
- A woman who constantly berates her children
- An alcoholic father that neglects his family
- A priest taking advantage of a minor
- A thief stealing from local businesses
- A woman that poisons her husband’s dog
- A “heavy breather” making crank calls
- A man that has an affair while his wife is dying of cancer

All that said, it is very well-written. Themes include the ramifications of choices and how people can be entrapped by their hopes, fears, and desires. The characters are multi-layered. The author does a great job of getting inside the heads of the three children, ages 12, 16, and 17, as well as the divorced wife, alcoholic father, and various colorful characters living in this small town. The rationalizations of the con man seem very realistic, as he comes up with excuses to justify his atrocious behavior. For example:

“People were just dying to find someone they could trust, and intimate, someone who not only understood, but knew things without having to be told. And he didn’t regard it in any way as taking advantage or preying on their troubles, because the truth was, he cared about people. He really did. Even when they turned on him. It pained him to see anyone hurt. There were still nights when he could not close his eyes, but what images of Earlie came to mind, that most headstrong, stubborn, and selfish young man who in a very real sense had been the instrument of his own harm. And of this he had no doubt. None whatsoever.”

I appreciated the writing and would have probably liked it more if it were shorter and less repetitious, but after almost 750 pages, I am glad to be finished.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This books reminds me of why I stopped reading Oprah's book club selections. Thank goodness I don't live in Arlington, VT, where this book is set (nominally, via references to ski boots and neighboring NY and Quebec). The town is composed of the entire class list from "ACME book of Dopes and Losers." They are all here: the Con Man, the Drunk, the Bitter Divorcee, the Pervert, the Conflicted Priest, the Seemingly Normal Person with Hidden Secrets..not a likable character in the bunch. If I weren't in desperate need of something to kill the time during midnight feedings, I'd really resent the time I spent plowing through these 800 pages. Even worse - I think I may have read it before (or is it just that it's full of cliches? I'll never know).

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a bit difficult to get into at first, but the author has such a way with words that I found myself reading some of her lines over and over again just to savor the artistry. I read this book about a year ago, and I still think about it regularly. The characters were so well crafted that I feel like I know them and wish I could read more about them. They were not all likeable, but they were so real. I wish I could write like this! If you prefer character driven novels over plot driven, this is the book for you. I thought it was great, but didn't realize how great until long after I read it, if that makes sense.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. A town of dysfunctional people, centered around a particularly dysfunctional family, penetrating and truthful, sometimes painfully so.

[Linda ~ they got the mustard out! ~ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, Oprah Book Club, why'd you recommend this?

I honestly don't remember much about this one now, and no way am I rereading it to find out. I do remember it being tedious, the mom being annoying with the low self-esteem and lack of initiative for anything, and the dad for being a loser in general and the daughter was somewhat tolerable, but that's probably the only good thing I can say about this. There's a conman, who's predictably a swine.

Going over the reviews for this one confirms this isn't worth rereading. Or even really remembering. Good writing doesn't make up for such dreary characters.

[Hope R · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first glance this appears to be a look at small town America, but it's better than that. "Songs in Ordinary Time" is more of a close study on how people justify their actions.

How does a swindler view taking other people's money as acceptable? How does a husband explain to himself why he hit his wife in a drunken argument? How does a businessman justify becoming a burglar? How does an alcoholic rationalize that "things will be different this time"?

Morris gives a perceptive look into the human psyche with this book.

[R.W. Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another of my all-time favorite books. I've recommended this one to friends over the years--so heartbreakingly beautiful and well written. Leaves a memory on the heart that isn't easily forgotten.

[Hillery · Rating 1 out of 5]

First and foremost, this book was WAY too long. I am not against a long book, but 740 pages of the summer of 1960 in a small VT town where the action is either lacking, or repetitive, is excessive. What was the point? Morris could have left 200+ pages out of this book and no one would have known. The editor clearly did not do his/her job. Interesting, though universally depressing, characters, but again, why so many? It was not possible to keep up with them all, or care about them all. And a fatal error for me.....an easily checked anachronism that showed the lack of effort on the editor's part--a Mustang pulls into a gas station in the summer of 1960. One problem--Mustangs weren't introduced until 1964. Only stubbornness made me finish this book.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I learned nothing, and I have no idea what Oprah was thinking. For 740 pages I stuck with this book, thinking it has to get better, there has to be something more. There isn't. Everyone ends up in the same place they started.

[Susan Katz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't usually give bad reviews; I just skip those books. And the fault here may lie in the reader, not in the book. But I found this novel simply unreadable. I only managed to get through 50 pages, but there was not one hint in those pages that the book had any message other than the world is an ugly place and people can be badly damaged. I don't need a book to tell me that. Perhaps I should have been interested in knowing what happened when the murderous con man moved in on the dysfunctional family. But there wasn't a character sympathetic enough so that I cared what happened to him or her. Every character was selfish, deceptive, and manipulative at best, if not cruel and violent. Or else they were disturbed to a degree that would require psychiatric diagnosis. Even the dog was unpleasant. I don't require a Pollyanna view of the world, but if its darkness is going to be portrayed in a book, then I want that portrayal to have some meaning. I'm not interested in merely being a voyeur of madness, addiction, and dysfunction. I wouldn't read Dickens either if every character was Fagin or Uriah Heep.

[Jennifer Millspaugh Gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was the most depressing, disheartening book I have ever read. For over 800 pages you keep thinking "Things can't get worse, they've got to start getting better." Oh yes they can and oh no they don't. Unless your life is really crappy right now and you want to read the only book where people have it worse than you, don't waste your time.

[Blair · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started a book club once and this was the book that we started with. It was awful. We all struggled through it and I think only three of us finished it. There were threats not to come back and I was banned from picking any further reading material for the group. Nothing happy, nothing good, just a pathetic mess of characters making poor choices. I'm all about poor choices - I make my fair share of them. But I try to learn from them and move forward. No forward movement in this book. Everyone was stuck, even the peripheral characters. It made me want to either drink or off myself. Maybe both, as one may lead to the next.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Songs in Ordinary Time” was an Oprah Book Club pick in June 1997. Some might call it a 740-page tome. I loved every word.

In hundreds of mini-chapters, Morris takes readers to the summer of 1960 in small-town Atkinson, Vermont, where readers meet Marie Fermoyle, a divorced mother of three, along with her neighbors, her ex-in-laws, her boss, a variety of other townpeople – and, most significantly, Omar Duvall, a man without a shred of honesty.

Marie’s oldest child, daughter Alice, graduates from high school and Marie is determined she will enter the University of Vermont in the fall. But this is a family unsure where the next dime is coming from…much less college tuition. Sam Fermoyle, Marie’s alcoholic ex-husband and father of her children, is often a sympathetic character, despite his shortcomings.

Oprah.com says, “Songs in Ordinary Time is a masterful epic of the everyday, illuminating the kaleidoscope of lives that tell the compelling story of this unforgettable family.”

I absolutely agree and found myself musing that, except for an accident of birth, any of us might find ourselves victims of alcoholic, vulnerable, struggling parents who never seem to catch a break. So much of who we turn out to be in life depends on our families, our friends, our towns, how we grew up. I found myself hoping against hope that this family and these children would turn out okay in the end even though they seem doomed from the beginning.

Enter Dr. Phil…perhaps in 2011…

Oprah.com still has lots of resources for the original Oprah Book Club books, including book club discussion questions for “Songs…” along with other info.

I highly recommend “Songs…” for anyone with the time to devote to this compelling family story. It’s important to realize the short chapters facilitate reading in brief chunks and it’s an especially great read for anyone who can identify with being a teen in the 1960s.

[Blessedutopia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm cheating by putting this in my read shelf. I read...half of it...which was brutal. I've never been so bored and unmotivated to read anything for "pleasure" in my life. I'd prefer a root canal...at least at the end of the torture there's a constructive ending.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The characters in this novel are facing bleak prospects, their plights hard and long... no surprise; it is an Oprah pick after all.

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 journey she's recommended I embark on will leave me with feelings of hopelessness.

But altogether it was not a bad read... there is a bit of redemption in the end but the author is true enough to the characters to not squeeze an ounce of happiness into that ending.

Despite what sounds like a negative review, I enjoyed the author's narrative style and perceptiveness... and I'll look up her other works.

Benjy, the littlest of the Fermoyles (the prinicipal cahracters of the book)... is such a beautiful character... wishing so hard for his mom's happiness. The mom's character is heart-breaking... she does have love... it just is trapped inside by the overwhelming pressures of daily routine and the constant threat of poverty.

[Debbie Mcafee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually ended up liking this book --- although it ended abruptly. It reminded me a lot of Carson McCullers or even a little Flannery O'Connor or Faulkner-like -- because it's a collection of these misfits --- the focus is on a family, but we also get glimpses of all the characters in this town. They're all so pitiful, lost, eccentric, etc. It took me a long time to read the book, however. I could only read about 25 pages a day, but I kept reading because I couldn't figure out how it would all end. I knew that there was no escape for these people and that their mundane lives would just continue on --- so I was intrigued how the author would wrap it up. The book's a little depressing. I would recommend it as a good read -- It was an Oprah book several years ago and I had bought it and stuck it on my shelf. Would love to chat with someone about it.

[Anissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this book. The characters & their problems were a chore & not engaging enough to hang in there for. I didn't even want to look at this book after I gave up & gave it away.

[Shandi Pattison · Rating 1 out of 5]

Snore. Painfully annoying to read. DNF.

[Aisha Manus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fuck that ending. 740 pages for that. Honestly the overall book wasn’t terrible, just drama like a telanovella, which I like. But wtf was that ending. Some characters deserve to die and Marie is one of I hate people like her. Victims of themselves. And I was angry Omar did not get justice. Shit just left unfinished with some. And I lost respect for Alice. I’m just mad I actually threw the book. I feel like I wasted my time. Don’t recommend.

[Elizabeth Hesseltine · Rating 2 out of 5]

The editor should be beaten about the head and shoulders for not cutting this book down to about half of its length. There were too many characters all of whose relationships were intertwined in such a way that I couldn't keep most of them straight. The author must have had a terrible childhood because none of the adult characters had any redeeming qualities, especially the men. I rarely give a book 2 stars, but this one deserves it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s an Oprah book club book, so of course it’s long, with a detailed plot, but also wonderfully written. Taken individually, our lives may seem routine and “ordinary”. Connected with those around us, however, life is anything but ordinary. This book highlights a period of time in one family’s life, and the community around them. Just as in real life, what the family views as “ordinary” is actually a story filled with emotion and unexpected surprises. The author does an excellent job creating well rounded characters, ones that are both loveable and unlikable, making them easily relatable to some friend or acquaintance in the reader’s life. The book doesn’t make any attempts to sugar coat the aspects of daily life, and yet manages to reflect how extraordinary each individuals story can be.

[Heather Lapinsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a favorite.

Every single one of these characters continually made the worst possible decisions at every opportunity. It became increasingly absurd that no one seemed to ever learn from their mistakes or to even recognize that their own poor decisions were to blame for their misery.

The con-man was written very well- he came off as sleazy and slimy as he should have been. All of the characters were written really solidly, to be honest. It was just the constant, unfailing, pick-the-worst-choice-possible plot device that drove me nuts.

[Kathi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm giving up on page 58. Other readers seem to either love this book or hate it. There are too many sub-plots and characters here to keep them all straight. In the first 50 pages, there have to be 40 characters introduced and other than living in the same town, I can't see what relationship they have to the central family. And I can't identify with the two young boys who seem to be the main characters. Life is short - I'm moving on to another book.

[Evelyn Pecht · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried not to like this book. The reviews hit me in all the wrong places. The story centers around a dysfunction family living in a dysfunctional town ... what could go wrong?? But, the characters slowly trapped me and I was hooked.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

An Oprah book! A depressing dysfunctional 700+ pages. I have finally arrived at the point that I can say this has nothing to give me that will improve me and walk away.