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After This: A Novel
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: September 05, 2006
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: September 05, 2006
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Editorial Review:
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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Disappointing
I must say this book was a disappointment. Maybe it is just the style of the author I did not care for. At times I found the plot
iteresting to keep reading. However, it was hard to follow. The author seems to jump around too much and not stick with a thought.
I have no problem with the plot being a so called "Catholic family". In fact the plot sounded like my type of book. But, the style of writing is not my cup of tea. I doubt I will seek out other books by Alice McDermott.
... Read More
Rating:  - Beautifully written, but doesn't gel
Alice McDermott is a wonderfully evocative writer, but for me, the story didn't come together in any meaningful way. More like a series of vignettes or short stories. A little tedious, in fact.
Rating:  - A flawless examination of the private moments of one family's life
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.
Rating: - A mighty wind blows through it
I really enjoyed "Charming Billy" and looked forward to this novel, especially after all the glowing reviews in the press. But seriously, that wind started a'blowin' on page one and kept on for the next 80 pages or so. Blowing people and their lives randomly into the unknowable future. In case you didn't get the meaning of the wind, its spelled out on the back cover. The wind finally lets up and turns to rain -right when people start crying (raindrops =tear drops, get it? Ms. McDermott even explains ... Read More
Rating: - Exquisite writing
This book is a bit like a gorgeous still-life painting. Things happen, but mostly the story doesn't seem to be the important part of the story. The writing is the real joy in this book, the images, the word choice, the delicate, perfect grace that is each sentence. That's what shines for me here. It is sometimes hard to slow down enough to really enjoy this book. It requires a kind of patience and attention to detail that is not common or easy to maintain in modern life. Reading this for me has been ... Read More
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