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After This: A Novel Audiobook
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(3.00) - 1,388 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
Alice McDermott's powerful new novel wittily captures the social, political and spiritual upheavals of the mid-twentieth century through the story of a family, and the changing world in which they live. While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution, their older, more tentative brother lags behind, until he finds himself on the way to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Clare, the youngest child of their aging parents, seeks to maintain an almost saintly innocence. After This, alive with the passions and tragedies of a determining era in our history, portrays the clash of traditional, faith-bound life and modern freedom, while also capturing, with McDermott's inimitable understanding and grace, the joy, sorrow, anger, and love that underpin, and undermine, what it is to be a family
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"I was surprised to be captivated by this book. It was passed on to me with a "not my type of book" comment and sat on my shelf for over a year before I decided to give it a chance. I would describe it as a "quiet" book. It's not as if a lot doesn't happen during the course of these people's (primarily one family's)lives. The characters experience joy, death, war, birth, intimacy, isolation....but, as in our own lives, the lessons from those expereriences are not laid out in black and white. On the other hand, I found myself wanting to get back to the book and surprised to realize as I finished that the story ended just as the family's history was on the brink of moving into the next generation. The book is like life in many ways. A couple comes together, starts a family, watches the children grow and handles the ups and downs along the way, then the children move on with their own lives and another generation begins. Reading the book, it occurs to me now, was very much like looking through a famiy photo album."
— Cheryl (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“Ms. McDermott gives us an affecting meditation on the consolations and discontents of family life…And her easy authority with this material, combined with her clear-eyed sympathy for her characters, results in a moving, old-fashioned story about longing and loss and sorrow.”
— New York Times -
“Exquisite…[McDermott] is a literary heir to Virginia Woolf.”
— Los Angeles Times Book Review -
“Evocative…Read this for its real-world wisdom and for sentences that are gorgeous beyond belief.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine -
“It is hard to know how to start piling on praise for this gripping, poignant book…Before we are aware of what McDermott has done, we are completely engaged…Like magic, we are drawn in.”
— Chicago Tribune -
“After This features McDermott’s by now trademark combination of exquisite delicacy and rich, multi-claused sentences. There is an incantatory interiority to her prose, capable of capturing subtle emotional nuances and flickers of moral wavering.”
— Newsday -
“Alice McDermott writes beautiful, understated sentences so subtle and yet so packed with insight that if you blink, you might miss, say, the death of a character, or the realization by another that her grown-up life ‘would not be the life she wanted.’…McDermott’s prose is stunning…[Her] talent never fails to impress.”
— USA Today -
“A master at capturing Irish-Catholic American suburban life…[McDermott] flawlessly encapsulates an era in the private moments of one family’s life.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“Word by word, metaphor by metaphor, McDermott writes the most exquisitely perceptive and atmospheric fiction published today. Heir to Woolf and Nabokov, she nets the totality of human consciousness.”
— Booklist -
“After five penetrating novels and a National Book Award, McDermott infuses the undulating plot with the knowledge that lives become most vivid in small moments of connection…Genuinely moving yet amorphous, like a remembered fragrance that you can’t quite place.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Awards
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A 2007 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Fiction
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A New York Times bestseller
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A 2007 Audie Award Finalist
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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One of the 2006 New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books for Fiction
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Among shortlisted titles for Pulitzer Prize - Finalist, 2007
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Among shortlisted titles for Audie Award Finalist, 2007
After This Listener Reviews
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" For me, the mail plus was the actual writing, not the story. "
— Karen, 2/17/2014 -
" I *think* I liked this book. I haven't completely decided yet. At first, I would read at night, and then I would wake up in the morning and have no memory of what I read the night before. I did this for several nights before I found myself a little more invested in the story, and then I could remember what was going on. Actually, I think part of the reason I started to remember the story is that the last half of the book is more interesting than the first half. I finally found myself invested in the characters and caring about what happened to them. I would like to try another book by Alice McDermott to see if I would enjoy her other stories more. "
— Jill, 2/16/2014 -
" Start with Charming Billy or Child of My Heart if you're new to Alice McDermott. This was a sort of experimental book, plot-wise, for her. Her sentences and scenes are great, as always, but the story structure takes some effort to determine. "
— Etanouye, 2/1/2014 -
" I read about half of this book, but I just couldn't get through it. I never felt like I was getting to know the characters, and there were a lot of mundane observations going on. "
— Ann, 1/27/2014 -
" This is a beautifully written book about an Irish Catholic family from Long Island in the 1940s-1970s. There really isn't much in the way of a plot. It's really mostly a character piece. McDermott's descriptions are breathtaking at times though. If you're a lover of language you should enjoy this book. "
— Danielle, 1/27/2014 -
" After This is an epic novel with three-quarters of the story removed; Alice McDermott pared her sweeping multi-generational novel down to its most beautiful and telling parts. Amazing voice, amazing ability to distill big things into little moments -- just amazing, period. "
— gwen, 1/19/2014 -
" Lyrical novel that will leave you enthralled by the author's use of characters and language. --Joni "
— Staff, 1/10/2014 -
" Follows one family through the changing social rules from the 1940's to early '70's. "
— Cathann403, 1/9/2014 -
" I kept waiting for something to happen in this book, but it never did. There was an occasionally interesting storyline, but mainly it was just a humdrum story about average, unremarkable people. "
— Martha, 1/6/2014 -
" Best McDermott I've read - really liked it. "
— Mary, 12/29/2013 -
" I like Alice McDermott, but I just couldn't warm up to this book. All the characters seem to live fairly pointless lives. We don't really get to know or like any of them particularly well, and then it just ends. Very disappointing. "
— Peggy, 12/23/2013 -
" An interesting look at family dynamics in a period that is vaguely familiar but still remote. Well written. Sad at times, but "real" in a way that isn't trying to be real. "
— Allie, 12/19/2013 -
" Through no fault of McDermott's, this was the second book in a row I read with the same annoying writing style. However, I did enjoy the plot and some of the characters, just never quite made the leap into absorbing due to an intentional vagueness. "
— Mimi, 12/7/2013 -
" As I read it I thought I didn't like it, but after I had it finished I was very impressed with its subtleties. "
— meghan, 11/23/2013 -
" This was a disappointment after loving McDermott's Charming Billy. I never connected with this book's characters. The story "picture" was taken from afar, with brief close-ups. It was a struggle to complete. "
— Margie, 10/2/2013 -
" Boring, predictable. Sad stories of that era. Couldn't wait for the end. "
— Carol, 9/11/2013 -
" I know I'm supposed to like her... but I don't. She's really really really boring. The best thing about this book was that it was on CD and I got to listen to Martha Plimpton read it. That got me through half the book. Then not even Martha was enough to keep me awake. "
— Anney, 8/27/2013 -
" Got through 70 pages or so, and it was still dull...............might have been a good story but that is all the work I want to do on it. "
— Crystal, 5/2/2013 -
" second time i have read this - l love this book, i love alice mcdermott, i love the writing and especially i love the characters. it was hard to finish, hard to leave the keane family. i will read this again and again. beautiful. "
— Katie, 7/17/2012 -
" An Irish-Catholic family in suburbia during the turbulence of the 60's. Good, but not great book. The characters seemed to be drawn in faded sepia instead of vibrant color. "
— Michelle, 5/7/2012 -
" Couldn't get into this one. "
— Lisa, 2/7/2012 -
" Every page of this book resonated. McDermott captures the tumult and confusion of the 60s. "
— Nina, 11/30/2011 -
" Overall..pretty good. Definitely missed reading from a first person point of view, but this one was written quite well that I enjoyed learning a little about all of the characters. I assume that Claire has a baby boy, nothing like her relationship with Jacob. That would be a nice touch. "
— Jessica, 11/13/2011 -
" Ouch! So real and so painful what a family can go through. A pretty nice conclusion, however. "
— Kelli, 6/30/2011 -
" A finely written work with lots of perceptive insight. "
— Nancy, 6/15/2011 -
" Meh. Didn't hold my interest enough for me to get more than a third of the way through. "
— Brenna, 5/20/2011 -
" Lyrical novel that will leave you enthralled by the author's use of characters and language. --Joni "
— Staff, 2/17/2011 -
" An interesting look at family dynamics in a period that is vaguely familiar but still remote. Well written. Sad at times, but "real" in a way that isn't trying to be real. "
— Allie, 1/30/2011 -
" I enjoyed the experience reading the family story which covers the decades from the parents meeting and marrying through the years that they raise their Irish Catholic family in post war New York City...It's a quiet, slow enjoyment, not a book that you just can't put down. "
— Marilyn, 1/12/2011 -
" Beautiful writing, yet plot failed to draw me in. Still an enjoyable read. "
— Laura, 1/12/2011 -
" Story moves through time so quickly it intrigued me. But other books called and this was due back at the library so maybe another time. "
— Suzanne, 12/14/2010 -
" New York, Catholic family growing up in the 50s and 60s. Mostly character studies, vignettes of family members. I like her writing and use of words very much. "
— Carol, 11/27/2010 -
" It must be painful to be as sensitive as Alice McDermott is! Delicate and sure characterizations and an evocation of domestic life in the recent American past that never hits a false note. But it is not just social history; it an exploration of the meaning of life and spirit.<br/><br/> "
— Jenny, 10/13/2010 -
" I was glad to be done with this one.... "
— Charissa, 9/22/2010
About Alice McDermott
Alice McDermott is the author of several novels, including Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award and a New York Times bestseller. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This were all finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, the New Yorker, Harper’s magazine, and elsewhere. For more than two decades she was the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the faculty at the Sewanee Writers Conference.