Product Description

A distraught young woman boards a train at King's Cross to return to her family in Scotland. Six hours later, she catches sight of something so terrible in a mirror at Waverley Station that she gets on the next train back to London.

AFTER YOU'D GONE follows Alice's mental journey through her own past, after a traffic accident has left her in a coma. A love story which is also a story of absence, and of how our choices can reverberate through the generations, it slowly draws us closer to a dark secret at the family's heart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6628 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Like a pointillist painting, Maggie O'Farrell's fine debut After You'd Gone is, from one perspective, formless--short vignettes, told from multiple points of view and in multiple voices, that are somewhat puzzling on their own and apparently have no connection to each other. Ultimately, however, these elements merge into a coherent and moving portrait of a young woman's journey toward a life-threatening crisis.

In London, one cold day in late autumn, Alice Raikes impulsively boards a train home to Scotland. Shortly after joining her two sisters in the Edinburgh train station, she sees something "odd and unexpected and sickening" in the station's restroom that causes her to immediately flee back to London. Later that evening, while walking to the grocers, Alice broods over what she has seen, then abruptly steps into oncoming traffic. As she lies comatose in her hospital bed, a swirl of voices and images gradually reveals her past--her parents, especially her mother, Ann; her beloved grandmother, Elspeth; her two sisters, so unlike her, both physically and temperamentally; and John Friedman, whom she loved and lost--and hints at her precarious future.

The unnamed spectacle of the opening washroom scene resurfaces in Alice's semiconscious haze and its eventual elucidation comes as less of a shock than a confirmation of all we have learned about her tumultuous existence. Sharply observed details of everyday life and language, original and telling figures of speech and deftly handled plot twists reach a moving climax, while subtly raising the question of whether the objects of Alice's affection--and the sources of her agony--were worth enduring. --Alex Freeman

Review
'The first proper novel I've read in an age. It is beautifully yet accessibly written and deals with the subject of grief in such an astute, touching and real way that I was on the verge of tears for most of the book' Lisa Jewell -- Daily Mail After You'd Gone was no.10 in the Sunday Express bestseller list After You'd Gone was chosen by Fi Glover as her favourite read in the Mail On Sunday 23/9 -- Mail on Sunday 20010923 'Rarely have I been forced to give up my life so entirely to dedicate myself to a book. And I felt the strands of the story tied together beautifully, so that as well as being funny, rich and harrowing, it ws also a deeply satisfying read' Esther Freud -- You Magazine 20010805 'This fantastic novel... The characters and story will really touch your emotions' -- Best 20011218 'This weepy... Is guaranteed to leave you out of Kleenex... Your life stands still as you turn the pages. An amazing study of grief as it poses the wrenching question: What do you do with all the love you have for someone when they're gone?' Glamour 20011218 'A memorable debut' Daily Telegraph 20011218 'Maggie O'Farrell keeps the reader guessing right up to the end in this engrossing psychological mystery... the characterisation is excellent and the dialogue immaculate' Sunday Telegraph 20011218 'an engrossing study of loss and family ties, delivered with the page-turning pace of a thriller' Independent on Sunday 20011218 'Details of Alice's childhood in North Berwick, its landscape and the well-observed objects that texture everyday life are convincingly done... cleverly constructed plot and great ending' Observer 20011218 'A story of passion and romance, of lost opportunity and chance happenings, of happiness and grief. This combination of love story and mystery is a moving and powerful debut and a sign of great things to come' Sunday Mirror 20011218 'Intriguing and mysterious novel' Express 20011218 'A contemporary and unflinching look at passion and attachment' Independent 20011218 'AFTER YOU'D GONE may be Maggie O'Farrell's first novel, but it shows a maturity that more experienced writers would mortgage their typewriters for... O'Farrell possesses a fine eye for the absurdities of human behaviour, which lightens, but does not diminish the tragedy that pervades this compassionate and engrossing book' Glasgow List 20011218 'A compellling and beautifully crafted tragedy about the past getting in the way of the present' Nottingham Evening Post 20011218 'This weepy, now out in paperback, is guaranteed to leave you out of Kleenex... your life stands still as you turn the pages. An amazing study of love and grief as it poses the wrenching question: What do you do with all the love you have for someone when they're gone?' -- Glamour 'A memorable debut' -- Daily Telegraph 'Maggie O'Farrell keeps the reader guessing right up to the end in this engrossing psychological mystery... the characterisation is excellent and the dialogue immaculate' -- Sunday Telegraph 'an engrossing study of loss and family ties, delivered with the page-turning pace of a thriller' -- Independent on Sunday

O'Farrell's first novel is a study of contemporary love and loss. She writes with ease and sensitivity as she unfolds an elaborate plot, linking two generations without losing the main emotional drive of her story. The central character, Alice Raikes, is rushing back to her family home in Edinburgh, where her sisters are expecting her; without any explanation to them, or the reader, she no sooner arrives than something spurs her to catch the next train south. Her reasons are gradually unravelled in a series of flashbacks. The central theme of the book is love in all its complications - between parent and child, man and woman. Alice's relationship with John Friedmann develops after some false starts during her years at London University. The daily intimacy of the lovers is depicted as skilfully as the passions which first bind them and the social and religious allegiances which divide them. John is the son of an Orthodox Jew. Ben and Anne, Alice's parents, rush to her hospital bed when a catastrophe occurs and, while waiting and hoping for their daughter's recovery, take stock of their own compromised marriage. An original, thoughtful novel and a good read. Revied by Judy Cooke. Editor's note: Judy Cooke is the editor of New Fiction for British Council, former editor of Fiction magazine. (Kirkus UK)

First-time novelist O'Farrell powerfully reworks a seemingly familiar tale..At the outset, Alice Raikes is suffering from some terrible, unexplained hurt. Impulsively she dashes from her North London home to see her sisters in Edinburgh. But while they're picking her up at the train station, she sees something that upsets her even more and minutes later jumps back on the train to London. That night she's hit by a car, either accidentally or as the result of a suicide attempt. After this mysterious and disturbing prologue, O'Farrell proceeds to tell the story of three generations of Raikes women and their lives in the small Scottish town of North Berwick, focusing primarily on Alice. Her actions in the opening pages are actually not really atypical: Alice is impetuous and moody, unlike her precise, chilly English mother and her quiet, methodical Scots grandmother. O'Farrell constructs the saga of these three women as a series of brief, interlocking vignettes, shifting between many layers of past and present, juggling some half-dozen different viewpoints. Deeply felt but very secret pain is the attribute that unites all of these characters, even Alice's barely glimpsed father-in-law, whose absence turns out to be a pivotal element in the story. Alice's seeming suicide attempt is a catalyst, a stone thrown into a pool that precipitates ripples of misery that wash back into the past and forward to the future. O'Farrell is an astute observer of little behaviors, the telling fidgets and habits of everyday existence, and she's at her best when piecing these together to create a sense of a real life experienced through fiction. The complex structure works beautifully, communicating the shared and interlocking sufferings of the Raikes women through its carefully worked-out layering of narrative lines. .Often painful to read, but finally quite satisfying.. (Kirkus Reviews)

Review
'This weepy, now out in paperback, is guaranteed to leave you out of Kleenex... your life stands still as you turn the pages. An amazing study of love and grief as it poses the wrenching question: What do you do with all the love you have for someone when they're gone?' (Glamour )

'A memorable debut' (Daily Telegraph )

'Maggie O'Farrell keeps the reader guessing right up to the end in this engrossing psychological mystery... the characterisation is excellent and the dialogue immaculate' (Sunday Telegraph )

'an engrossing study of loss and family ties, delivered with the page-turning pace of a thriller' (Independent on Sunday )

Customer Reviews

Good
I read this after reading and loving The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and have been left with mixed feelings about it. I really enjoyed it until about 3/4 through and then found the ending a chore to get finished. I thought that it dragged and went on a bit. I would still recommend it but if you only read one of Maggie O'Farrell books, try The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox first.

Fantastic
Heartwrenching, I felt I really knew the main character and completely empathised with her. Disappointed when I finished reading it - what am I going to do with my time now and will another book compare?

At last - a good read
At last. After months of searching for a good book to read to follow Atonement and Kite Runner, etc, I was given After You'd Gone and could not put it down. I think it is a beautifully written love story. O'Farrell's writing is so clear that I felt I knew the characters personally and so was deeply moved by the events as they unfolded. I don't want to give away the story - suffice to say that I recommend this book 100%.