After This

A vivid portrait of an American family in the middle decades of the twentieth century by bestselling author Alice McDermott

The Washington Post - Jane Hamilton

McDermott is at the height of her powers here, charging her seemingly ordinary scenes with the possibility of danger, of terror or mystery and, on occasion, radiance. She does so with the lightest touch, with the silkiest humor, and yet at the same time she probes deeply into the moment. And so there is suspense when a professor plies an earnest student with whisky, when the Keane children play with toy soldiers on a windy dune, when a group of college boys argue about Halloween decorations in a bar, when a spinster rides a bus at night.

Alice McDermott has a relatively young but already illustrious career: In the space of four slim novels, she has earned two Pulitzer nominations and a National Book Award win for 1998's Charming Billy. She mostly has drawn on her background growing up Irish-American on Long Island to create compelling family portraits, but she is also an author worth watching for the turns she'll take in the future.