Alice McDermott is the author of nine novels, including Charming Billy, winner of the National Book Award, and That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This, which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of the essay collection What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and other publications. She lives outside Washington, DC. Her new novel is called Absolution.

We talked about voice, epistolary influence, focusing on women's stories, retrospective narrators, the idea of absolution, and Vietnam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices