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After You'd Gone [Paperback]

Maggie O'Farrell (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (180 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Publication Date: 11 Aug 2008
Maggie O'Farrell's groundbreaking debut: a stunning, best-selling story of wrenching love and grief.

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 that 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.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Headline Review; New Ed edition (11 Aug 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0747268169
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747268161
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.5 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (180 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon 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

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)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 49 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to review 10 Aug 2006
By Ms. L. J. BEARD
Format:Paperback
To use a cliché, this was a real rollercoaster of a read. I cried and laughed in equal measures -- a novel that I had misjudged as light chick-lit turned out to be one of the best reads of my year.

The other O'Farrell books left me a little disappointed, especially "My Lover's Lover", but this novel is set above the others by its clever use of cross-cutting and changes in narration. The reader is drawn into the story by the use of second person; placing us into the role of Alice and showing us the world through her eyes, before switching to a colder third person to narrate her situation in a more abstract way.

The ending is memorable, if a little predictable, but - much like Atkinson's "Case Histories" - the numerous plotlines come together successfully to solve Alice's mystery at an emotional climax.

One of the very few books that I have finished and immediately reopened at the very first page.
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A highlight of the year 22 Sep 2001
By Mrs. V. R. C. Corby
Format:Paperback
I'm glad I didn't read the reviews here before I read this book - the comments about it being 'pointillist' would have made me think it was probably tiresomely literary, full of clever tricks and generally the sort of book that has me flinging it at the wall in irritation. This book is wonderful,uplifintg and leaves you with a real feeling that you've been given an insight into someone else's world. The only two books I can think of that I've read in the last year that are in the same sort of league are Tracy Chevallier's Girl With A Pearl Earring and Rosemary Tremain's Music and Silence (if you haven't read them - do). I didn't find the fragmented structure and the multiple view point in the least bit difficult to deal with (and I began reading knowing nothing at all about the book apart from a reccomendation from a friend so I wasn't prepared for anything different), and Maggie O'Farrell's language is deceptively simple, it's only afterwards that you realise the reason why this book is apparently so easy to read is because is is so, so well written. And that, to answer a previous reviewer's comment, is probably why this book hasn't swept the board as far as prizes are concerned - it isn't tricky enough, it isn't 'clever' enough and it's just too approachable and attractive - it seems that being accessible to the general public is usually enough to disqualify most books for literary prizes. More fool them, this book is truely exceptional. Read it.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars After You'd Gone, Maggie O'Farrell 28 Jun 2005
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book stayed with me for a long time after reading it. It is incredibly moving without being overly sentimental. My advice is don't finish it on a bus or any form of public transport, crying is obligatory. I felt like I had been hit with a sledgehammer when I finished it, though it is still strangely subtle and perceptive about love, loss and family dynamics, especially from a female perspective.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Good But not for me
I did not like the switching back and forth in tme . It left me feeling a bit frustrated. A bit dissapointed as I had read so many good revievs.
Published 8 days ago by Ellen Stanley
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly engrossing!
Never before (maybe One Day) have I become so engrossed in the lives of characters in a book...

Because the book is told from many different times of Alice's life, I... Read more
Published 1 month ago by SoThisIsReading
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Read a couple by this author and really enjoyed them! This was excellent, well written and a compelling good read.
Published 1 month ago by MaryWorld
4.0 out of 5 stars After you'd gone
A great read, even if very sad. Makes me want to read more Maggie O'Farrell. I can highly recommend it
Published 1 month ago by krystyna doyle
5.0 out of 5 stars Could not put it down
Started this last night and spent most of the afternoon trying to desperately devour it!
The familiar Scottish language and landscapes are like being home and her storytelling... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sheila Bottomley
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping
great how she keeps you hooked by jumping from character and time line,deep understanding of human feelings,also liked her locations
Published 2 months ago by Nancy Dawson
3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing but somber read
This was a book that kept me intrigued from the first page. I was eager to learn what had caused the sequence of opening events and the plot intertwined past and present in a... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jmcd
5.0 out of 5 stars This book has stayed with me for years...
You know when you read a book that you can't put down and when you eventually finish it you are disappointed that it has come to an end? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Plot lover
5.0 out of 5 stars After You'd Gone by Maggie O'FARRELL
Alice; Plucky,determined,loyal,individualistic,striking. Alice is in a Coma. How did the accident happen? Was it deliberate? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Astrid Hubbard
5.0 out of 5 stars Moving & thought provoking
This is the second Maggie O'Farrell book I've read & it didn't disappoint. Gritty, complex characters are reflected in & by the fragmented structure. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Miss Catherine E Barnett
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