“A Bigamist’s Daughter” by Alice McDermott (post 1): Bigamy suggests multiple personality, as seen in earlier novel by Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer

When I saw that Alice McDermott was to be featured in today’s New York Times Book Review (1), I decided to read her first novel, A Bigamist’s Daughter (2). I am halfway through.

It has just occurred to me that I have previously read a novel about a bigamist: Enemies, A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Enemies, A Love Story was published in 1972. It’s author, Isaac Bashevis Singer, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. A Bigamist’s Daughter was published in 1982.

I don’t know if Singer’s novel was known to McDermott. Singer’s novel was not mentioned by Anne Tyler in her review of A Bigamist’s Daughter (3).

To see that bigamy is a subject that lends itself to multiple personality, search “Isaac Bashevis Singer” to read my past posts.

1. “Alice McDermott Is Reading ‘Frankenstein’ for the First Time” in The New York Times Book Review of Aug. 15, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/books/review/alice-mcdermott-by-the-book-interview.html

2. Alice McDermott. A Bigamist’s Daughter [1982]. New York, Picador/Farrar Straus Giroux, 2012.

3. Anne Tyler. “A Bigamist’s Daughter” by Alice McDermott. The New York Times, February 21, 1982. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/mcdermott-bigamist.html