AFTER THIS was a most enjoyable read. I don't think I'd ever read any Alice McDermott before, but this one has certainly piqued my curiosity. An old-fashioned kind of story about a normal Catholic family on Long Island that covers nearly four decades, beginning in the post-war years when thirty year-old Mary, who has nearly lost hope of marriage, meets John, a handsome veteran. They marry and have four children, and we watch those children grow up, progressing through Catholic schools and how they all change as they live through the tumultuous sixties and beyond. I was reminded of a couple old TV shows we used to watch, like FAMILY, or that one about the Philadelphia family with the dad who ran a TV sales and repair shop and the daughter who wanted to be on American Bandstand - ah, Britanny Snow, on AMERICAN DREAMS, that was it. The show that was canceled in mid-story, when the girl rode off on the back of a motorcycle with her ne'er-do-well boyfriend. And the brother who went off to Vietnam. That was the one. Only in McDermott's story we kinda get to see how the story ended, sort of. There's a son who goes off to Nam in this one too. And another son and two daughters. But hey, AFTER THIS is just damn good story-telling. You have to read the book. It's really good. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

i really love the way she writes. i am not sure that i love this book or what she's doing, but i almost didn't notice that until i was near the end, because of the way she puts words on the page. i think if she were to write a book with a plot or characters that i could really relate to, that i would absolutely love it. (as far as this one goes, i'm not sure the characters are as fully developed as i'd like, and certainly i didn't care much about any of them or what happened to them. it was told as an overview, as well, without much of the detail about how incidents in a life are dealt with or handled; it's almost a cold appraisal of living. the details given aren't important, and the ones missing are crucial. so from that perspective, i'd have preferred she had written this differently. but the way she wrote it? stellar. and alone enough for 3.25 stars.) ( )

A story of a family mid-20th century, dealing with all the shifts those years brought. It's an ordinary family compassionately drawn and viewed from each persons perspective. ( )

In linked vignettes, we follow the Keane family from Mary and John meeting after World War 2 to the children growing up and experiencing Vietnam and the beginnings of the sexual revolution.

This was a quiet sort of story that I spent most of the book not sure if I really liked it or not. The format gives a sort of distance from characters and events - we're given a very domestic scene with most of the emphasis on the experiences of the women of the family and though there are some snapshots of the boys, large experiences such as Vietnam are told more from the perspective of those left behind. There was more general commentary on changes in family life, religious outlook, "the calm before the storm" as one of my book club participants called it. This isn't a particular family with characters you want to know, this is your average Catholic family on Long Island, and the author leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks, perhaps from his or her own experiences. It's not a book I'd make a point of rereading, but McDermott can certainly write some lovely sentences and creates some memorable images, so I would try another book by her. ( )

Compelling and beautifully written, incantatory. ( )