Elizabeth and After: A Novel [Paperback]

Matt Cohen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2001

A touching and resonant story of a man who returns to the small town of West Gull, Ontario, to mend his family’s legacy of alcohol and violence, to reconnect with his young daughter, and to reconcile himself with the spirit of his beautiful mother, killed several years earlier in a tragic accident. Elizabeth and After masterfully wraps us up in the lives of Carl and his family, and the other 683 odd residents of this snowy Canadian hamlet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for Fiction, Cohen's (Last Seen) muted smalltown drama is set in West Gull, Ontario, a farming center and tourist destination on the shores of Long Gull Lake. The eponymous Elizabeth McKelvey, "the woman considered to be the most beautiful, the most mysterious, the most out-of-place in the whole township," is already dead at 51 as the novel opens, but her presence is still felt. She is mourned by her retired, semi-alcoholic husband, William, and her ne'er-do-well son, Carl, who has just returned to town. Adam Goldsmith, accountant to West Gull's unscrupulous leading citizen, Luke Richardson, and "possibly the most colourless man ever to live in West Gull," silently suffers her loss, too; he was Elizabeth's secret lover. As Richardson's political campaign kicks into high gear, Carl tries to find a job in his hometown's depressed economy and reconcile with his ex-wife, Chrissy, and seven-year-old daughter. Carl is tormented with guilt over his mother's death; he was driving his parents home after a party and crashed into a tree. He is also fearful of inheriting the McKelvey family shiftlessnessAneedlessly, it turns out, since Carl is actually Goldsmith's son, although the younger man is unaware of that. It is Chrissy's new boyfriend, Fred Verghoers, Carl's old enemy and Richardson's opponent on the campaign trail, who finally forces Carl to confront his past. The narrative pauses to flash back to Elizabeth's life; perhaps she scrutinized it obsessively ("Was it that she had been too frightened to ruin her life and wished she had?"), but she never suspected the strength of her legacy to the people who would survive her. Though Cohen wraps up his plot lines a little too neatly in another car crash, his empathy and compassion, and his delicate depiction of loss and longing in a closely knit community, haunt his narrative. (Aug.) FYI: After Cohen's untimely death in 1999, Margaret Atwood wrote "An Appreciation" for the Toronto Globe and Mail: "Matt was a consummate writer.... He was very smart, very funny and very intellectually tough."
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Winner of Canada's prestigious Governor-General's Award, this is an incredibly intricate novel about a small town and its people. West Gull is in Ontario but could be anywhere in the world where small towns survive. Protagonist Carl McKelvey, who is reminiscent of Richard Russo's characters, particularly Sam Hall in The Risk Pool, returns to West Gull for reasons seemingly unknown to him and others in town. In West Gull, Carl had left an ex-wife and a daughter, a dead mother, an old father, and a reputation as a violent drunk. Hoping to rebuild his life, he reestablishes contact with his seven-year-old daughter, Lizzie, but finds that the memory of his mother, Elizabeth, who touched everyone in town to some degree and who died in a car crash when Carl was at the wheel, is a strong impediment. Now, Carl must put that memory and guilt to rest before moving on. Cohen's novel is packed with humor, desperation, and romance. Highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.
-Patricia Gulian, South Portland, ME
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312276958
• ISBN-13: 978-0312276959
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,459,848 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elizabeth and After, July 24, 2000

By 

David Unger - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elizabeth and After (Hardcover)

Though Elizabeth and After has a gently-propelled plot and wonderful characterizations, what makes this novel so unique and special, for me, is the crisp and fresh writing. There's nothing labored or falsely "poetic" in the prose. Everything works and this is altogether unusual in contemporary American/Canadian fiction. For this reason, I consider this to be the best novel I've read this year. David Unger

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinarily rich novel, August 30, 2001

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Elizabeth and After: A Novel (Paperback)

Author Matt Cohen has created a layered novel of characters tangled together in unexpected ways. But the most stunning gift is his phrasing; he renders images as clearly as a photograph..."he took her down onto the sweet cool ground and gave her little explosions and tears of pain"...or "the perfect silence of falling snow".
This intimate rendering of the quirky personalities of the inhabitants of West Gull, Ontario, include the gamut of human behavior, from the sociopathic voyeur to the powerless ageing bachelor. Throughout, it is Elizabeth who defines the commonality of life begun with such hope, now left to languish in despair or the comfort of memory. Cohen reaches deep and reminds us that his characters were once young, defined by their hopes and dreams. We know Adam only in the context of his interior life and his awe of Elizabeth. He serves as an example of the complexities within those we love and take for granted, find wanting and toss aside.
In Carl McKelvey we find the essence of his mother, Elizabeth. For all his troubles, he retains Elizabeth's authenticity, strength and ability to accurately "read" others. Carl is able to put aside his own pain and frustration in an effort to provide his daughter with the father she deserves.
This is an author whose words enrich the life of the reader. He lays out the tapestry of the human experience, making it impossible to dismiss anyone lightly. Covetous, malicious personalities stand beside the foolish, the innocent, the ignorant and the desperate. The landscape of ELIZABETH AND AFTER is a journey into the heart of man, and Cohen is the guide.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent vivid writing..., April 19, 2002

By 

libellule "libellule23" (St Bruno Québec, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elizabeth and After: A Novel (Paperback)

I wish I had discovered this book before. I could not put it down. It is a page turner especially from part II when we get to really know Elizabeth.The writing is quite vivid and descriptive, easy to read, it flows. The characters come alive and the author transports you into their world and uncovers their beauty, their passions, their faults and obsessions in such a unique way. I highly recommend this book and am sorry that it is the last one written by Matt Cohen.