Maggie O’Farrell
Although After You’d Gone is Maggie O’Farrell’s first novel, she already shows promise of her wide-ranging talents as a writer. The novel’s ambitious structure consists of multiple timeframes, multiple threads, and the perspectives of three generations of women: Alice, her mother, and her grandmother. The main thread is about Alice.
The novel opens with Alice impulsively deciding to visit her family in Scotland. She is obviously in a great deal of emotional and psychological pain although we are not told the cause. Her two sisters meet her at the Edinburgh train station. Alice barely has time to greet her sisters when she sees something shocking. She immediately decides to catch the train back to her home in London, without explaining why to her sisters. That night, suffering from depression and intense grief, she intentionally steps off the sidewalk and is hit by a car. She ends up in a coma in hospital where she remains for most of the novel.
The novel then flashes back to Alice as a child and her fraught relationship with her mother; her university days; her employment in London at a national arts organization; her marriage to the love of her life; and her intense grief following her husband’s untimely death. Interspersed throughout Alice’s thread is the backstory of Elspeth, Alice’s grandmother; and Ann, her mother.
The novel’s shifts in perspective and spontaneous leaps in time which mingle the past with the present can be a confusing at the outset until one gets into the rhythm of the novel. The flashbacks are presented as interlocking vignettes, shedding light on the three generations of women and their back stories. The main thread is on Alice’s fraught childhood, her tense relationship with her mother, and her relationships with men. Unlike her Scottish grandmother who is methodical and calm; and unlike her English mother who is cold and dogmatic; Alice is emotional, moody, unconventional, and impetuous.
All the characters, including the minor ones, are authentically drawn. O’Farrell is an astute observer of minute details. She frequently juxtaposes a minor detail with a character’s climactic moment. She captures her character’s interiority, mannerisms, and the incidentals that distract attention, all of which contribute to a realistic portrayal. Her depiction of Alice’s despair and grief after the death of her husband is heart-wrenching.
The complex, interlocking structure gradually uncovers the lives of the three women, revealing secrets and illicit love affairs. But the beating heart of the novel lies with Alice, her boundless capacity for love, and her equally boundless capacity for experiencing grief at its loss.
Another great Maggie O’Farrell novel.