Bitter Is the Wind

Jim McDermott is a nationally recognized business litigation attorney based in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He has worked on an assembly line and also represented multinational corporations. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and the University of Virginia Law School. Bitter Is the Wind, which he worked on for twenty-five years, is his first novel.

"Like [Raymond] Carver...McDermott has a way of beautifully and crisply illuminating the thoughts and feelings of solid, blue-collar Americans."—The Huffington Post"A readable...story of generational tensions in America."—Kirkus Reviews"Bitter is the Wind is a...good first novel...spiced with news events from the period that will bring back memories for anyone who grew up during the '70s."—Portland Book Review"Coming-of-age new adult and adult readers will find much to like in Bitter is the Wind, a full-flavored read that provides more depth and social and economic background than most."—Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review"Honest and poignant, Bitter is the Wind is a promising novel and points to McDermott as an author to watch."—John Murray,San Francisco Book Review"I was struck by the clarity and simplicity of the prose—which reminded me of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories."—Sami Moubayed"Bitter is the Wind, is a heartwarming story of the interactions between a father and son after they face horrible tragedy and get older. McDermott has done a fantastic job creating characters that are believable and easy to sympathize with. It is seldom that you come across a story about love, loss, and survival between a father and son that is not overly sappy or cliché."—Amy Synoracki, Manhattan Book Review"A debut novel about the troubled relationship between a working-class father and his son."—Kirkus, Starred Review"A pungent slice of working-class life in 1970s America, as well as a deeply-affecting father-son story. Bitter is the Wind reminded me how hard it's always been to achieve success for those who weren't handed it on a silver platter."—Stephen Fife, author of The 13th Boy and Dreaming in the Maze of Love-Grief-Madness"A compelling tale of American aspiration and accomplishment told from the perspective of characters customarily deprived of opportunity, working folk whose lives and voices are rarely presented in first rate fiction."—Frederic Hunter, author of The Girl Ran Away and A Year at the Edge of the Jungle