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  1. $17.49 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

After This

by Alice Mcdermott

After This Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Alice McDermott's powerful novel is a vivid portrait of an American family in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Witty, compassionate, and wry, it captures the social, political, and spiritual upheavals of those decades through the experiences of a middle-class couple, their four children, and the changing worlds 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, Jacob, 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.

Review:

“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.”The New York Times

Review:

“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

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

Review:

“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

Synopsis:

Witty, compassionate, and wry, this novel captures the social, political, and spiritual upheavals of the middle decades of the 20th century through the experiences of a middle-class couple, their four children, and the changing worlds in which they live.

Synopsis:

On a wild, windy April day in Manhattan, when Mary first meets John Keane, she cannot know what lies ahead of her. A marriage, a fleeting season of romance, and the birth of four children will bring John and Mary to rest in the safe embrace of a traditional Catholic life in the suburbs. But neither Mary nor John, distracted by memories and longings, can feel the wind that is buffeting their children, leading them in directions beyond their parents’ control. Michael and his sister Annie are caught up in the sexual revolution. Jacob, brooding and frail, is drafted to Vietnam. And the youngest, Clare, commits a stunning transgression after a childhood spent pleasing her parents. As John and Mary struggle to hold on to their family and their faith, Alice McDermott weaves an elegant, unforgettable portrait of a world in flux–and of the secrets and sorrows, anger and love, that lie at the heart of every family.

About the Author

Alice McDermott is the author of five previous novels, including A Bigamist’s Daughter; Child of My Heart; Charming Billy (winner of the 1998 National Book Award); At Weddings and Wakes; and That Night. She lives with her family outside Washington, D.C.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Laurie Blum, October 31, 2007 (view all comments by Laurie Blum)
I have read all of the National Book Award-winning novels by Alice McDermott and am just as mesmorized with her 6th book "After This." It tells the heartbreaking story of an Irish-Catholic family who is strugging to deal with the challenging after effects of the Vietnam War.... a moving chronicle of the shattering realities of such loss experienced ... very emotional saga with many excellent issues for discussion. The Keane Family characters will crawl into your very soul!
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780385334693
Author:
Mcdermott, Alice
Publisher:
Dial Press
Author:
McDermott, Alice
Subject:
General
Subject:
United states
Subject:
Social life and customs
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Subject:
United States Social life and customs.
Publication Date:
September 2007
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
277
Dimensions:
8.28x5.28x.63 in. .48 lbs.

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