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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply Stunning, August 27, 2004
This review is from: After (Hardcover)
Sparse, measured, breathless pacing. I don't lean toward inviting comparisons often but if you liked "House of Sand and Fog" you will love this tender and heart-wrenching novel, a worthy addition to the slender list of fiction dealing with life in a post 9/11 world.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A psychological contretemps, July 6, 2005
Writing this novel is either very brave or very cynical, as it embraces the recent tragedy of 9/11, Americans beheaded on foreign soil (Daniel Pearl) and the culture clash of Middle Eastern Fundamentalism with the loss of American innocence. Nothing is referenced in particular, nor are names spoken, only suggestions, but the recent violence is tangible, a widow grappling with the aftermath of her loss.
The widow arbitrarily decides to have an affair with a Muslim and says so to her grief counselor, at first merely for shock value. But the idea holds a strange appeal and the woman makes advance to a man she meets at a trade show. That he is of Persian origin is irrelevant; he fits the need of the moment, whatever dark forces are working in the widow's subconscious. This Muslim has been unfaithful to his wife before, but not since the recent events that have branded him as suspicious rather than mysterious. His life has been "reduced to a choice of pronouns", us or them. The widow finds "a naive intensity about him that had made her think she could skip all the small talk".
Driving to a clandestine meeting at an unkempt hotel in California, the man ponders his life, remembering the violence in his own country, the shocking death of a close friend, his childhood joy in the contours of the sea, remnants of a homeland left behind years ago. Meanwhile, the widow waits. Perhaps she has chosen a man she could not possibly love and therein lies his appeal. Her reasons for arranging the tryst are complicated, suspect, as the widow blindly pursues a release to the unbearable tension that has gripped her since her husband's death. The Muslim has no delusions, only a wish to comfort this strange woman, mislead by her changeable emotions.
The couple embarks on their assignation in the anonymous hotel room by the sea, but with the view of an empty pool, any traces of romance obliterated by disuse. Here they act out her fantasy; later he makes tentative advances, wanting a closeness that she cannot or will not allow. He makes dogged attempts at intimacy, refusing to give up on her passivity. The widow has seduced this man with her vulnerability; they are joined in the physical act, yet irrevocably separated by their differences. The union is more unsettling than erotic, his wife barely present, her husband hovering. The coupling takes on a life of its own, with surprising twists of cruelty, barely suppressed rage and the jagged edge of violence. In only a day and a half, what should have been a simple transaction between two virtual strangers degenerates into a purgative ritual, leaving the widow and the Muslim stunned.
The author rides the widow's subconscious to the darkest corners of her rage and grief, unleashing the demons that have usurped her ability to function without her husband. The Muslim sees himself as an individual, seeking only the comforts of an extra-marital affair, but this is not the time for such distinctions, as the woman is blinded by the enormity of her loss. Prodding relentlessly at the widow's damaged psyche, Tristram creates a vulnerable, haunted character, driven to act out what she cannot process in words, love and rage impossibly entwined. This provocative novel examines the reclamation of self by a woman who cannot achieve closure by ordinary means, unmoored by an act of infidelity with the object of her enmity. Whether the author goes too far is for the reader to decide. Perhaps this is an act of bravery, writing of the forbidden to uncover hidden reserves of hatred and unfathomable grief. Luan Gaines/2005.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
She was searching diligently for something she had lost, July 1, 2004
This review is from: After (Hardcover)
Written in alternating points of view, After is a poetic, fluid, and highly original novel. Readers will appreciate its short length and its charged, and gutsy style. The story centers on one man 'the Muslim" and one women "the Widow," both nameless and mysterious in their intensity and passion. For the Widow, everyday events are falling apart, and after telling her therapist that she wants to choose a Muslim lover, she happens to meet one at a work trade show. Their connection is instantaneous. She knows immediately that she will sleep with him, and their rendezvous is set to take place at a run-down, empty seaside hotel. As the narrative progresses, the inexplicable motivations that drive each character's actions become clearer. They erotically and emotionally bond, performing a type of perverse and viscous sexual role-play, each letting out their pent up angst and torment. The woman's husband was murdered at the hand of Muslim extremists - probably on September 11th - and she writes grief stricken, purge-filled letters to his ghost. She imagines sleeping with "the Muslim" because it is something forbidden, unexpected, a way of repaying her husband, and something so clearly outside the role, which she has been forced into by her circumstances. The man she chooses is a married Iranian who immigrated to America after the Shah's fall. He, in being drawn towards "the Widow" also has "a gap, a hole, a tragedy in need of resolution and healing." The Widow's interest compels and sustains him, though her "fervent melancholy" and obvious grief trouble him. He's a married man with two young girls, but he feels he is wedded "to an empty dress, as shallow as cotton." Understanding his wife's inner thoughts has eluded him, and he has fallen into some restless purgatory where "waves and waves of thwarted desire rise up and threaten to engulf him." After is a quietly deceptive novel where the clues to understanding both characters' motivations unfold steadily and in the end, prove to be quite revelatory. The story is quite topical in its portrait of racism and cultural dissidence; the characters are living a world where, more and more, we can be killed, not for who we are, but for what nationality or religion we happen to be. The language of regret is also quite powerful - the memories of her dead husband that the widow can't quite catch are "like bits of trash blowing over and over along the sand." And as her grief changes shape, what is left is not quite grief at all, but something she could only describe as desire. Yet she has sadness, where the love acts mean no more to her "than memories of the grave." Both characters are erotically responsive, but both keep so much of their anger, fear and emotion internalized. Their disconnectedness comes from a sense of everything having changed, and where times are dark and unstable. Seething in their own psyches, it's probably an effort for them to get even this far. Mike Leonard June 04
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