Review of AFTER YOU'D GONE by Maggie O'Farrell

4 Stars

I discovered Maggie O’Farrell last year.  Thus far, I’ve read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-of-vanishing-act-of-esme-lennox.html) and Hamnet and Judith (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2020/07/review-of-hamnet-and-judith-by-maggie.html) and loved them, giving 4 Stars to both.  This time I thought I’d return to her debut novel, After You’d Gone.  It’s another 4-star book!

The novel focuses on Alice Raikes who for virtually the entire novel is in a coma.  While she lies in this non –responsive state, flashbacks are used to tell Alice’s life story, as well as much about the lives of her grandmother Elspeth and her mother Ann. 

The prologue grabs the reader’s attention, beginning with its first sentence:  “The day she would try to kill herself, she realised winter was coming again.”  Then a few pages later, “she saw something so odd and unexpected and sickening that it was as if she’d glanced in the mirror to discover that her face was not the one she thought she had.  Alice looked, and it seemed to her that what she saw undercut everything she had left.  And everything that had gone before.”  As a result of what she sees, she waits for traffic to start across an intersection and “The soles of Alice’s shoes peeled away from the tarmac, and she stepped off the kerb.”  And that’s just the prologue!

So there’s a mystery throughout:  what did Alice see that influenced her to commit suicide?  I guessed what she saw about a third of the way through, but had to read to the end to have my suspicion confirmed.  But the book is more than just a mystery; it is also a family saga.  Alice’s relationships with her mother and grandmother are detailed; both women keep a major secret intended to protect the family. 

The book is also a romance, a genre I generally try to avoid.  In this book, however, the romance between Alice and John Friedmann didn’t leave me rolling my eyes.  John is immediately attracted to Alice and is determined to win her over despite her reluctance.  A deep passion develops but there is a major obstacle.  The title suggests that John is gone, but what happens is not revealed until three-quarters of the way. 

The structure of the book is complex.  It has multiple points of view and voices.  It moves back and forth between the present and various time periods in the past.  Both first and third person narrations are used.  No breaks are used to indicate a change in time frame or point of view, but I quickly became accustomed to the shifts and actually enjoyed working out the specifics of time and place.  Reading the book can feel like putting together a mystery jigsaw puzzle. 

Readers will find themselves emotionally involved.  There are scenes that are hilarious like the one in the hotel where Alice and John have agreed to meet.  And then there are the heart-breaking scenes.  The novel excels at portraying loss and the “huge, crushing weight of grief”:  “Yes, life fucking well goes on but what if you don’t want it to?  What if you want to arrest it, stop it, or even battle against the current into a past you don’t want to be past?”

There are several strong elements worthy of mention.  Characterization is one of them.  The three women are complex characters.  All are flawed so I found myself sometimes angry and frustrated with someone and then feeling sympathy for her.  And then there’s the lyrical prose:  “Edinburgh was steeped in a coagulating damp and mist; whenever Elspeth tried to conjure her childhood there she envisaged wet, slicked streets at dusk, veiled with sheets of feathery rain and gray buildings.”  And look out for repeated references to mirrors and hair, the latter even alluded to indirectly by mention of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”.

The ending left me wanting more.  My only consolation is that I have five more Maggie O’Farrell novels left to read!