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    After This: A Novel
    After This: A Novel
    After This: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    After This: A Novel

    Written by Alice McDermott

    Narrated by Martha Plimpton

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateSep 5, 2006
    ISBN9781593979935
    After This: A Novel
    Author

    Alice McDermott

    Alice McDermott is the author of nine novels, all published by FSG, including Charming Billy, winner of the National Book Award, and That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This, which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of the essay collection What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and other publications. She lives outside Washington, DC.

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    Reviews for After This

    3.5/5

    199 ratings25 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I loved Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott so I had high hopes for this book. McDermott writes beautifully and it's because of this that I saw this book through to its end. The first half was so slow and dull that I nearly gave up on it. I kept thinking that it would get better with the next chapter. It did, but only marginally so. The story's pace picked up and the story became more interesting, but I felt as though it was unfolding from a great distance to which I could never quite get close enough. I'm not really sure what the point of the story is or why certain bits were revealed or why they came to light when they did. Not everything needs to add up in order for me to appreciate a book but they need to not leave me puzzling over all that just didn't make sense, as was the case with After This.
    • 2/5
      I did not like this book at all - read it for a local book club. There seemed to be no plot or story line. A collection of short glimpses of a family over decades but no consistent theme. The book jumped from one time to the next with very poor transitions.
    • 5/5
      AFTER THIS was a most enjoyable read. I don't think I'd ever read any Alice McDermott before, but this one has certainly piqued my curiosity. An old-fashioned kind of story about a normal Catholic family on Long Island that covers nearly four decades, beginning in the post-war years when thirty year-old Mary, who has nearly lost hope of marriage, meets John, a handsome veteran. They marry and have four children, and we watch those children grow up, progressing through Catholic schools and how they all change as they live through the tumultuous sixties and beyond. I was reminded of a couple old TV shows we used to watch, like FAMILY, or that one about the Philadelphia family with the dad who ran a TV sales and repair shop and the daughter who wanted to be on American Bandstand - ah, Britanny Snow, on AMERICAN DREAMS, that was it. The show that was canceled in mid-story, when the girl rode off on the back of a motorcycle with her ne'er-do-well boyfriend. And the brother who went off to Vietnam. That was the one. Only in McDermott's story we kinda get to see how the story ended, sort of. There's a son who goes off to Nam in this one too. And another son and two daughters. But hey, AFTER THIS is just damn good story-telling. You have to read the book. It's really good. Very highly recommended.- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
    • 4/5
      A story of a family mid-20th century, dealing with all the shifts those years brought. It's an ordinary family compassionately drawn and viewed from each persons perspective.
    • 3/5
      In linked vignettes, we follow the Keane family from Mary and John meeting after World War 2 to the children growing up and experiencing Vietnam and the beginnings of the sexual revolution.This was a quiet sort of story that I spent most of the book not sure if I really liked it or not. The format gives a sort of distance from characters and events - we're given a very domestic scene with most of the emphasis on the experiences of the women of the family and though there are some snapshots of the boys, large experiences such as Vietnam are told more from the perspective of those left behind. There was more general commentary on changes in family life, religious outlook, "the calm before the storm" as one of my book club participants called it. This isn't a particular family with characters you want to know, this is your average Catholic family on Long Island, and the author leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks, perhaps from his or her own experiences. It's not a book I'd make a point of rereading, but McDermott can certainly write some lovely sentences and creates some memorable images, so I would try another book by her.
    • 5/5
      I could completely understand the families in this book---must be my age! McDermott beautifully describes the feelings of the times---all about changes and similarities of the generations.
    • 2/5
      I did not like this book at all - read it for a local book club. There seemed to be no plot or story line. A collection of short glimpses of a family over decades but no consistent theme. The book jumped from one time to the next with very poor transitions.
    • 3/5
      Good book by Alice McDermott. Just went too fast and left a lot of details out.
    • 2/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      I loved Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott so I had high hopes for this book. McDermott writes beautifully and it's because of this that I saw this book through to its end. The first half was so slow and dull that I nearly gave up on it. I kept thinking that it would get better with the next chapter. It did, but only marginally so. The story's pace picked up and the story became more interesting, but I felt as though it was unfolding from a great distance to which I could never quite get close enough. I'm not really sure what the point of the story is or why certain bits were revealed or why they came to light when they did. Not everything needs to add up in order for me to appreciate a book but they need to not leave me puzzling over all that just didn't make sense, as was the case with After This.
    • 4/5
      All in all, I really liked this book. The slow, languid pace somehow fits the story perfectly. My one complaint is that the story treats time almost like a stone skipping over water. At the end of one chapter, two people meet each other, and at the beginning of the next, they are married with three children and a fourth on the way. Then, suddenly, we are another 5 years or so in the future (references to WWII and the Vietnam War anchor the story generationally, but there's very little to give solid reference points as to how much time has passed from one point in the story to another). I understand that all the day-to-day details of family life are not the point of this book, but I did find it more satisfying when McDermott allowed us deeper into the lives of the Keane family rather than just skimming the surface.
    • 4/5
      This a slightly strange book in that it doesn't seem to go anywhere, and at the end it's not totally clear (to me anyway) what it was all about. I suppose you can summarize it as being a story of a catholic family growing up in New York in the mid to late 20th century. There were very significant events happening, but McDermott seems to almost mention them in passing, rather than spending time drawing out their significance. The relationships among the four siblings are certainly examined, but not at the emotional depth I would have liked. Maybe it's just written on a higher level than I'm used to reading...I'm not good at picking up subtleties. The book reminds me a bit of Richard Russo's "Bridge of Sighs", but I found Russo's book to be much more satisfying to read.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book I have read by Alice McDermott. She is indeed a very fine writer and this story of an American family spanning two decades is brilliant. John and Mary Keane and their 4 children are a traditional working class Catholic family living on Long Island. Their children come of age in the 60's and the family faces a changing world, Vietnamn, the sexual revolution, and new ideas.The only fault I found with this book was that occasionally it moved too slowly with too much detailed description of events. Ms McDermott is a realist which I apreciate but the visit to the beach early in the book is an example where I felt that the movement of every grain of sand was being described. This was however a very small problem compared with the quality of the writing.
    • 1/5
      I was surprised not to like this book bec. I do like the writing of Alice McDermott. It just didn't hold my interest. After reading 1/2 the book, I can't even rem. the characters names.
    • 4/5
      McDermott is a master at evokinig readers' understanding of the characters through a paucity of description of the truly meaningful events in this book. I found the same was true of Charming Billy. The chapters often begin with the event already accomplished that determines the responses and interactions of the characters that then lead to the next chapter. I really enjoy this prose. Ms. McDermott is well worth reading.
    • 4/5
      A collection of vignettes about the Keane family of Long Island, living in the wake of the Vietnam War. In vignette-like chapters, McDermott probes the inner lives of this family. McDermott flawlessly encapsulates an era in the private moments of one family's life.
    • 4/5
      'After This' follows the life of a middle-class couple, the Keanes, as they struggle to raise their children amidst the backdrop of Vietnam and sixties-era America. McDermott, a proponent of the 'Speak quietly but carry a big stick' school of writing, eloquently offers a tale of the Keanes' progression from marriage, to children, to marriage once again. McDermott writes in a spare, but lyrical and musical style, and understatement is the key - the most powerful moments in the novel are left to the reader's imagination, rather than stated explicitly. This results in a novel that's subtly affecting rather than overpowering. No tour-de-force, torrential maestrom, but rather, a gentle mist and very affecting in its own way. Definitely recommend.
    • 3/5
      A nice little story about a family of six on Long Island. The children grow up during the 60s. I listened to it on CD while commuting to work. It touches on Vietnam and abortion among other things.
    • 4/5
      The story of an Irish Catholic family in Long Island from after WWII through the Vietnam War. Each chapter skips from character to character depicting seemingly every day life episodes from that character's life. I enjoyed McDermott's writing style and the way she painted every day life scenes, but I felt a bit let down and wanting more when I finished the book.
    • 5/5
      One of the All Iowa Reads nominees, this one follows a family (Mom & Dad & four kids--2 boys & 2 girls) from the time the parents start dating just after WWII until the youngest child gets pregnant & marries. It's really just a series of scenes in their life rather than a continuous story but does not really suffer on that account. It's a well-written book filled with insight about the life oa middle-class, urban, white, Catholic family (with due attention to the famjily's religious practices) that will likely appeal to baby boomer parents & kids but doesn't seem to me to be especially well suited as a book ALL Iowa should read.
    • 5/5
      About life's suffering and life's gifts, large and small. The kindness we show to each other saves us from the pain each life contains. In After This, we follow a family from the 50's-60's through all the sweeping cultural changes that period brought and through the evolution of a family as they grow up. A simple but profound story of giving, loving, compassion, and grace. I especially like McDermott because she is what I remember my Catholic faith to be all about and the life and culture that resonates with me.
    • 3/5
      didn't love Alice McDermott's After This. Her prose and style were excellent, and since this was my first book by McDermott, I am going to have to look into her other works before I come to a conclusion about her. As for this particular work, any book about family relationships is going to be prickly because that is the nature of family,but I struggled to find much about any character with which I could identify (despite having the whole Irish catholic family background), and at times I even found the parents somewhat repugnant in the ways they related to or perceived their own children. There was a sense of disconnect throughout the entire book that made it difficult to really feel like the family was anything more than a bunch of orbiting satellites around the central nebulous idea of "family." And perhaps, because of the time setting of the work (late 40's-70's) it is that feeling that McDermott set out to capture, in which case the book is brilliant, and I just am not a good match for that type of story (always a possibility). The story ends abruptly and without seeming to obtain any sense of closure. However, it is an easy read. I was able to finish in less than three days, and it's not completely UNenjoyable. It's just not one I will ever find myself saying "Oh you really MUST read this...."
    • 4/5
      A series of vignettes, snapshots of memories as a family grows together and apart during the social upheaval of the 60s. Polished and evocative.
    • 2/5
      Although the subject matter was promising, the book was disappointingly flat. It follows a family from the postwar marriage of the mother and father, their four children growing up in the 1950s and coming of age in the '60s, and a sort of "afterthought" character--a family friend who never marries. The author fails to develop the characters--occasionally, I forgot the name of the children. The upheavals of the 1960s, changes in religion, the Vietnam War, feminism--all affect this family, but so vaguely that the reader just doesn't care. Maybe that was the author's point--a family just like any other. McDermott is a good writer, so the story flows along like a placid stream--not bad enough to stop reading, but not good enough to get excited about.
    • 3/5
      An episodic novel following John and Mary Keane from their first meeting in post World War II New York through marriage, the births of their children, and the lives of those children as they mature into young adults. The novel has a somewhat disjointed feel to it, as the chapters jump from one character to another. However, the author has an exquisite writing style, and some of the chapters are gems, such as the chapter when son Jacob spends the afternoon with his youngest sister before leaving for the Army. In a later well-written chapter, which starts out being about other characters, the family learns of Jacob's death in Vietnam. However, some chapters, such as the one detailing daughter Annie's experiences in school in England, just don't come off. The characters in that chapter, such as Annie's friend Grace and their English literature professor, just don't seem very real. All in all, a fairly good novel, but some parts are definitely better than others.