''After You'd Gone'' is Northern Irish author

Maggie O'Farrell Maggie O'Farrell, RSL (born 27 May 1972), is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel, '' After You'd Gone'', won the Betty Trask Award, and a later one, '' The Hand That First Held Mine'', the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She ha ...

's debut novel. Published in 2000 by

Headline Review Headline Publishing Group is a British publishing brand and former company. It was founded in 1986 by Tim Hely Hutchinson. In 1993, Headline bought Hodder & Stoughton and the company became Hodder Headline Ltd. In 1999, Hodder Headline was acqui ...

, it garnered 'international acclaim' and won a Betty Trask Award. O'Farrell started writing the story which was to become ''After You'd Gone Home'' at an

Arvon Foundation The Arvon Foundation is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom that promotes creative writing. Arvon is one of Arts Council England's National Portfolio Organisations. Andrew Kidd is the Chief Executive Officer, Patricia Cumper is Cha ...

course in Yorkshire. It was praised by her tutors, Barbara Trapido and

Elspeth Barker Elspeth Barker (16 November 1940 – 21 April 2022) was a Scottish novelist and journalist. Born as Elspeth Langlands, she was raised in Drumtochty Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where her parents ran a prep school for boys. From 1958, she ...

Plot introduction

The novel centres on Alice who is in a coma following a suicide attempt. Using shifting times and viewpoints it tells of the lives and loves of three generations of women: Alice and her two sisters Kirsty and Beth, her complex and secretive mother Ann, and her grandmother Elspeth in whose

North Berwick North Berwick (; gd, Bearaig a Tuath) is a seaside town and former royal burgh in East Lothian, Scotland. It is situated on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, approximately east-northeast of Edinburgh. North Berwick became a fashionable ...

home they all lived. Central to the story is the passionate relationship of Alice with her Jewish partner John, who works in

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central Lon ...

and is caught up in the

1996 Docklands bombing The London Docklands bombing (also known as the South Quay bombing or erroneously referred to as the Canary Wharf bombing) occurred on 9 February 1996, when the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a powerful truck bomb in South Q ...

Reception

According to Jane Rogers in the second edition of

OUP Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

's ''Good Fiction Guide'', the novel was released to 'raptuous reviews'. Rogers herself praises the 'crystal-clear prose' and goes on to say "This is a love story and a family saga, but the skill with which it is constructed and written gives startling life to these traditional subjects: feelings of love and grief are rarely so well explored Elizabeth Speller writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' is also impressed with the strength of the writing, "what makes this book remarkable is a luminous use of language and imagery which turn Alice's world into one of elements and of sensation; a universe of light, smell, taste, heat and sound." Kirkus Reviews concludes "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.AFTER YOU'D GONE by Maggie O'Farrell , Kirkus Reviews
Retrieved 11-06-2019.

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.maggieofarrell.com/After_Gone.html

2000 novels Novels set in Scotland Novels set in London Novels about suicide Fiction set in 1996 North Berwick 2000 debut novels Headline Publishing Group books