After This

Alice McDermott

People have asked why I am not writing my book reviews. Well, there was not a reason other than my busy schedule, but here I am with a second book in less than a month. I promise to do my best to keep up with you, my readers. And, for those of you who like more “action packed” books, the next book will be for you.

Ms. McDermott draws on her own background of growing up Irish American on Long Island to create the family portraits in her books. She is known for finding the exceptional and extraordinary in the daily events that make up family life.

After This is a “domestic epic” which outlines several decades in the lives of a suburban Irish Catholic family and is told in vignettes. The story looks at the lives of John and Mary Keane and their four children during the cultural transition of the mid twentieth century as Vatican II, Vietnam, and the sexual revolution. Beginning with World War II, these happenings mean upheaval for families across the nation.

After This begins at the close of WWII as Mary Rose, age 30, endures a lonely life taking care of her father and brother and working in a secretarial pool. Mary meets John Keane at the lunch counter and the rest of the book centers on this average couple’s struggle for contentment while the culture of America changes.

Each of Mary John’s four children share center stage as the novel shifts its spotlight to each child’s story. This results in a portrait of a family’s change over time. Children Annie and Michael test the parameters of the changing world. Jacob, the eldest and most sensitive, is sent to war; while Clare, the youngest and most innocent possesses certain worldliness.

This book is a revealing story of minute moments of real tragedy and quiet grace, but most importantly, the novel tells how genuinely extraordinary are the lives of even the most ordinary of families. I truly enjoyed this book, both its story and Alice McDermott’s style of writing. She treats her characters with a sense of amusement and compassion, but is honest in her portrayals. Her characters are people we each know and her novel very graphically tells of their reactions to the changes around them.

(by Anne Frame, Guest Columnist)