After You'd Gone [Paperback]

Maggie O'farrell (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Qpd (2000)
• ASIN: B000NDH1DS
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)

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.