After You'd Gone [Hardcover]

Maggie O'Farrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2001

A young woman named Alice Raikes boards a train to Scotland to visit her family. But when she arrives, she witnesses something so shocking that she insists on returning to London that very minute. Only a few hours later, Alice is lying in a coma after an accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt.

With Alice's life hanging in the balance, her family gathers at her bedside. As they wait, argue, and remember, long-buried tensions rise to the surface. The more they talk, the more, it seems, they conceal from each other. Alice, meanwhile, sliding between different levels of consciousness, recalls her past and a recent love affair. Skipping around in time, knitting together the different points of view with astonishing dexterity and beautiful prose, Maggie O'Farrell has created a story of love and family relationships that is reminiscent of the very best of Edna O'Brien and Mary Gordon. With one of the most heart-stopping openings in modern fiction, After You'd Gone is a work of extraordinary psychological depth and impressive maturity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like a pointillist painting, this fine debut is, from one perspective, formless--short vignettes, told from multiple points of view and in multiple voices, that are somewhat puzzling on their own and apparently have no connection to each other. Ultimately, however, these elements merge into a coherent and moving portrait of a young woman's journey toward a life-threatening crisis. In London, one cold day in late fall, Alice Raikes impulsively boards a train home to Scotland. Shortly after joining her two sisters in the Edinburgh train station, she sees something "odd and unexpected and sickening" in the station's restroom that causes her immediately to flee back to London. Later that evening, while walking to the grocery store, Alice broods over what she has seen, then abruptly steps into oncoming traffic. As she lies comatose in her hospital bed, a swirl of voices and images gradually reveals her past--her parents, especially her mother, Ann; her beloved grandmother, Elspeth; her two sisters, so unlike her, both physically and temperamentally; and John Friedman, whom she loved and lost--and hints at her precarious future. The unnamed spectacle of the opening washroom scene resurfaces in Alice's semiconscious haze, and its eventual elucidation comes as less of a shock than a confirmation of all we have learned about her tumultuous existence. Sharply observed details of everyday life and language, original and telling figures of speech and deftly handled plot twists reach a moving climax, while subtly raising the question of whether the objects of Alice's affection--and the sources of her agony--were worth enduring. Foreign rights sold in seven countries.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

It is hard to believe that such an assured work comes from a first novelist. Starting in London with a young woman stepping off a curb in front of an oncoming car, O'Farrell gradually lays bare the harrowing realization that prompted the suicide attempt. On one level, this is a love story; on another it is an intergenerational tale of three women (grandmother Elspeth, mother Ann, and Alice, the victim). But to describe it as such sounds platitudinous, which it is definitely not. With smooth prose, O'Farrell moves seamlessly among the victim's family and friends and back and forth in time in seemingly random fashion, slowly revealing her characters' pasts and stunningly bringing the story back to the present. Despite its premise, this is not a depressing book. Published originally in the UK to good reviews, it should appeal to fans of Mary Gordon and Margaret Atwood, though it will draw a more popular audience than the latter.DFrancine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1st American Edition edition (March 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670894486
• ISBN-13: 978-0670894482
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,060,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MAGGIE O'FARRELL is the author of four previous novels, including the acclaimed The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, which was a B&N Recommends Pick, and After You'd Gone. Born in Northern Ireland in 1972, O'Farrell grew up in Wales and Scotland. She has two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A story of love and loss that you will never forget, May 21, 2001

By 

Lynn Corney (Las Vegas, NV United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After You'd Gone (Hardcover)

I'm an avid reader, an oftentimes jaded reader, and a book has to be nothing short of remarkable to make me visibly emotional. But Maggie O'Farrell's book made me both laugh and cry out loud, and kept me up all night until I finished.

After You'd Gone is a series of flashbacks, written from different perspectives, that together form a highly emotional family portrait.

You can't help but be drawn in by the characters. You feel for them, you understand them, and you ultimately care what happens to them. Oftentimes, British novels with British characters are a little more difficult for American readers to relate to. But this is not the case with O'Farrell's book.

Male or female, young or old, everyone can appreciate this story. It is an easy read, full of humor, romance, and grief - a unique combination that will stay with you long after you are finished.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant debut about love, loss, mothers and Scotland, March 24, 2001

By 

Leah Stein (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After You'd Gone (Hardcover)

I bought this book in a store yesterday on a whim - it's her first book so I've never heard anything about her - and I stayed up until 4am last night to finish it. I don't read much British (or Scottish, in this case) fiction but after "After You'd Gone" I fully intend to.

First off, it's a fascinating, addictive storyline: you honestly will not be able to put it down. Secondly, the characters are so real and recognisable they seem to reach out of the page and grab you. It's beautifully written; O'Farrell has a deft, poetic control of language. The central part is a really passionate love story. And it's that very rare thing, especially in debut novels - completely original.

It was particularly interesting for me because it centres around an affair between Jewish man and a Gentile woman, giving an insight into modern Judaeo-Christian relationships in Britain - which is not something you find every day in British fiction.

I'd advise everyone to read this. I can't wait to hear more from Ms Maggie O'Farrell.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling and compulsive read!, May 18, 2001

By 

Lynn Adler - See all my reviews

This review is from: After You'd Gone (Hardcover)

Alice is a 28-year-old young woman who tells us on page one that she took a train from London to Scotland on the day she decided to kill herself. It won't do you any good to skip to the end to find out why. This isn't that kind of story and the answer is not all that simple, although at first you might suspect it to be. The plot is ordered in a deliberate, yet natural way that jumps back and forth in time through the eyes of Alice, her mother, her grandmother, and her husband until the individual pieces add up to our total understanding. Each little vignette is also a fascinating character study in which the reader is invited to look and draw his/her own conclusions.

A story of deep complexity and maturity, it is hard to believe that this is Maggie O'Farrell's first novel. It has all the elements of great literature, love and loss, trust and betrayal, and the sins of one generation visited upon the next. Yet the writing flows naturally and easily. I found it a compulsive read. I was so involved with the characters that I could not leave them alone for long until I reached the last page. I highly recommend this one and look forward to more of this author's work.