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Songs in Ordinary Time

mary mcgarry morris

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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.

740 pages, Paperback

First published August 1,1995
Places
vermont, 

This edition

Format
740 pages, Paperback
Published
August 27, 1996 by Penguin Books
ISBN
ASIN
Language
English

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About the author

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mary mcgarry morris

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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.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
29(29%)
4 stars
37(37%)
3 stars
34(34%)
2 stars
0(0%)
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100 reviews All reviews
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mentaza
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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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.
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squidatk
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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With writing like this, HOW can people give this book low ratings and negative reviews?

[On a bus trip]   He was distantly aware of the wheels turning under them, the stench of exhaust through the dusty sliding windows, and beside him, n  the wet crunch of Lucille's pointy teeth into a pear.n

[Keep in mind this is happening at a formal business dinner!!!]   Biggs was a carpet installer from Detroit whose bad knees had ordained a new line of work. His life's savings as well his mother's had been invested in Presto. n  "Hear that?" he'd asked Omar during the cocktail hour, raising each leg up and down. 'That's cartilage crunching."n

I enjoy so much, getting to scrutinize other people's miserable lives. And I love how we get into the characters heads and know all their dramatic thoughts.

Please, Mary McGarry Morris, let all your other books be this good!!! This one goes on my favorites shelf, but, I put the paperback itself directly into the trash. Why? Because the printer or bookbinder really screwed up. There were 60-ish pages missing in the middle and then a whole section of pages were in the book twice!! Luckily, the ebook is an "always available" title on Hoopla so I was able to download it, read the missing pages on Hoopla, and then return to the paperback.
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MattNFS
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Bo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ring and WAY too long. All during the book, I kept thinking, "When is something going to happen?"
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blouptalking
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The only thing that kept me reading was the belief that there had to be some redeeming value in this book that had been so highly touted. There wasn't.
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Phill-z
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This was a wonderful read. It was about the citizens of a small town in Vermont in the summer of 1960 and all their problems and misgivings. The central focus was a struggling family of a divorced mother and her three children and the introduction of a murderous con man into the family unit. So many of the characters were so richly thought out and observed that they almost deserved their own novels. My favorite character was the middle child, Norm. Not all of the characters were positive but they all seemed human. I read this book during social quarantine from Covid as it proved worthy company.
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reluctantbeeswax
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A fallen priest, a con man, an insurance agent turned criminal, troubled teens, perverts, a small time hood kicked out of the marines, a snooty slum lord, adulterers, a drunk and a divorced mother of three trying to hold it all together in a small town somewhere in Vermont. We are told that John Fitzgerald Kennedy is running for president so we know that it's the summer of 1960, but in one inconsistency someone is described driving a Mustang which could not have happened until after the JFK assassination. It was a bit of struggle for me to get into the book, I found the first fifty to a hundred pages confusing but as I read on I found myself immersed in a story of small time life populated by the lowest common denominator of humanity...often depressing but just as intriguing as a soap opera.
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ItsmeAshtray
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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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.
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MrDreamerexxe
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Beyond depressing and too long

Beautiful writing but every single character was so flawed and every moment was so tragic. That was probably the point, but the novel was so long and every character/page/moment was depressing, disturbing and frustrating. Picked it up for a trip to Vermont, and it became a personal challenge to finish.
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