After Annie by Anna Quindlen
Fiction
2024
Finished on July 13, 2024
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
Publisher's Blurb:
When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centered their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie’s support. It is Annie’s daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood.
Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.
Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.
We all have those favorite authors who write stories that reflect our own lives, and Anna Quindlen is high on my list. I've read all but two of her novels, and After Annie is classic Quindlen, full of real-life issues, addressing the tender emotions of grief from the vantage point of a husband, a young daughter, and a best friend. She doesn't shy away from the visceral anguish felt by Annie's family and her closest friend, drawing the reader into the center of the Brown home as they navigate the confusion and helplessness after Annie's sudden death.
Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it and then it came roaring back. And getting out from under it felt like forgetting, and forgetting felt like treason. Sometimes when he reached in the closet for a shirt, a sleeve or two from her side would touch his arm, like it was reaching for him, and there would be a faint smell, lemon and hand cream and something else, maybe her shampoo.
My heart ached for Ali (Annie's thirteen-year-old daughter), but it was eleven-year-old Ant, whose anger turned to despair when he cried, "I want my mom." I have held a grieving child who said those exact words to me, and all I could do was hold her tighter. I didn't believe it at the time, but I can now agree with Ant's father as he held his son, telling him that it does get better.
Every Last One continues to be my favorite work of Quindlen's, but After Annie comes very close to nudging that novel down a notch. I was captivated from the opening lines, finishing far more quickly than I wanted.
Highly recommend.
It's interesting to me that when I find an author who writes fiction as well as nonfiction, like Quindlen, I tend to prefer the nonfiction to the fiction. I don't know why this is.
ReplyDeleteDeb, I've enjoyed her nonfiction works, too. I'm thinking of some of my favorite nonfiction titles by other authors (Kelly Corrigan, for instance) and wonder if I would like it if she wrote fiction. Hard to say!
DeleteAnne Lamott is another author who has written both. So is Barbara Kingsolver. I like all these authors' fiction, but I greatly prefer their nonfiction.
DeleteThat's a great review, Les. I am contemplating getting it from the library but I also have the Calire Messud novel waiting. Choices! Also looking over my summer reading challenge list and am going to swap out two books.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tina! It's a pretty quick read, so I say go for it! You may have a long wait, though. Her books are pretty popular.
DeleteGlad you enjoyed this one. I've read three of her novels and one nonfiction. I think they've all been quite good (a lot of pain in some of them!). I think I read Miller's Valley last. But I remember One True Thing probably most. Not sure if I will read this one ... but might.
ReplyDeleteSusan, she does write heartache/pain so well! I think I've read One True Thing a couple of times. I thought Miller's Valley was good, but Every Last One is my all-time favorite, although it really gutted me!
DeleteQuindlen's novels are so good but I haven't read one in a long time. I liked Black and Blue (though devastating) and One True Thing
ReplyDeleteHelen, I read both of these a long time ago. One True Thing is also an outstanding movie with Meryl Streep and Renée Zellweger.
DeleteWow. I remember your writing of Anna Quindlan’s books before, but the passage on grief, and your subsequent reflection, is truly beautiful. Don’t we grow through life’s experiences and what we read?!
ReplyDeleteYes, we do! Thanks, Meredith.
DeleteSomehow I’ve never read any of Quindlan’s fiction at all. Sounds like that’s a mistake!
ReplyDeletebest, mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Mae, I don't know which I would recommend for you to start with, as they're all quite good, but this one was especially remarkable. I know that I'll read it again someday.
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