thanks for joining us. >> woodruff: national book award winner alice mcdermott has written her first w novel in seven years. titled "someone", it's a finely drawn account of one ordinary woman's seemingly unremarkable life. jeffrey brown talked with mcdermott recently. here's an excerpt of their conversation. >> understood that this was a character who in her own life her voice hadn't much been heard and in literature her life isn't much heard so -- >>brown: you were conscious of that? >> yes. yes. for me it was resisting all the more appealing characters. and listening to the voice that hadn't been much heard from. >>brown: i've read that this story began as something bigger, that i think you referred to another interview as a teeming noafl you were working on and somehow it was this one remarkable woman. >> yes. brown: that's true? the sense of her voice alone, to give the entire novel to her voice, to her character, to the way she sees things and doesn't see things. to hear her voice the way she uses language. she's a shy child. she's a plain woman. yes, an unremarkable, on the sur