After This

AFTER THIS

by Alice McDermott

 

Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2008, Pulitzer Finalist 2007

 

Date Read: January 3, 2021

 

After This is a lovely novel about the Keane family – white, American, middle class. I cannot exactly pinpoint what is so compelling about this but I loved it. Four siblings, Michael, Annie, Jacob and Clare grow up in the 60’s and navigate the treacherous waters of a shifting society. Nothing extraordinary happens here except life being lived and the beauty and sadness that come with it.

 

While Michael and Annie explore the sexual revolution and are able to view sex and themselves through the paradigm of an increasingly liberal society, Jacob finds himself off to Vietnam never to return. Clare, being the youngest, is left behind at home and is determined to live a virtuous life until her heart is captured by a boy and she follows her heart’s and body’s desires.

 

What is extraordinary about this journey is McDermott’s writing. She has the ability to capture beauty in the mundane and convey the richness of day-to-day life. She is the type of writer that could make a tomato ripening breathtakingly beautiful. And for four siblings coming from the same upbringing, their different trajectories as the choices that come from birth control, abortion, the Vietnam War, and women’s rights open before them. As much as these four children wish to shed the mundane and conventional, they find themselves seeking it out just as equally as they push it away.

 

Looking Forward: Charming Billy, The Ninth Hour, Someone

 

Looking Back: That Night 

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