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After This
- Narrated by: Martha Plimpton
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's summary
Alice McDermott's powerful new novel wittily captures the social, political and spiritual upheavals of the mid-20th century through the story of a family, and the changing world in which they live.
While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution, their older, more tentative brother lags behind, until he finds himself on the way to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Clare, the youngest child of their aging parents, seeks to maintain an almost saintly innocence.
After This, alive with the passions and tragedies of a determining era in our history, portrays the clash of traditional, faith-bound life and modern freedom, while also capturing, with McDermott's inimitable understanding and grace, the joy, sorrow, anger, and love that underpin, and undermine, what it is to be a family.
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Why we think it’s a great listen: Never before has an author’s narration of his fiction been so important to fully grasping the book’s impact and global implications. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of its monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them.
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A Worhty Read
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The Wishing Thread
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The Van Ripper women have been the talk of Tarrytown, New York, for centuries. Some say they're angels; some say they're crooks. In their tumbledown "Stitchery", not far from the stomping grounds of the legendary Headless Horseman, the Van Ripper sisters - Aubrey, Bitty, and Meggie - are said to knit people's most ardent wishes into beautiful scarves and mittens, granting them health, success, or even a blossoming romance. But for the magic to work, sacrifices must be made - and no one knows that better than the Van Rippers.
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At the American Academy of Classical Art, popular opinion has it that the school's handsome and mysterious founder, Raphael Sinclair, is a vampire. It is a rumor Rafe does nothing to dispel. Scholarship student Tessa Moss has long dreamed of the chance to study at Rafe's Academy. But she is floundering amidst the ups and downs of a relationship with egotistical art star Lucian Swain. Then, one of Tessa's sketches catches Rafe's attention: a drawing of a young woman in 1930s clothing who is covering the eyes of a child.
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UGH... Will the Heroine Ever Grow Up?
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The novel opens on the eve of World War II. In the mountain village of Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon, under the approving eyes of the entire village, courts the beautiful Anielica Hetmanska. But the war's arrival wreaks havoc in all their lives and delays their marriage for six long years.
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In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad students at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology PhD student, and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug’s possibilities such that their “research” becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns into a freewheeling exploration of mind expansion, group dynamics, and communal living.
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STORYTELLING AS CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
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Grand Central
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On any particular day, thousands upon thousands of people pass through New York City's Grand Central Terminal, through the whispering gallery, beneath the ceiling of stars, and past the information booth and its beckoning four-faced clock, to whatever destination is calling them. It is a place where people come to say hello and good-bye. And each person has a story to tell.
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Grand Central: Memories
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The Magician's Assistant
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When a gay Los Angeles magician named Parsifal dies suddenly, he leaves behind his heartbroken assistant, Sabine, and a secret past that leads her to Nebraska and a father she never knew he had.
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Patchett Has It
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The Untelling
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Aria is no stranger to tragedy. Fifteen years ago, a family outing took the lives of her father and baby sister, leaving remaining members of this fractured family struggling with their own guilt - real and imagined. At 25, Aria believes she can reinvent herself through her planned marriage with all its promise of a family of her own. Her infertility changes her life as swiftly and irrevocably as the urban landscape around her.
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Don’t waste your time!
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
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What listeners say about After This
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Edie
- 05-09-07
poignant and poetic
This is a beautifully written book, with a lot of depth. Themes such as war, religion and the role of chance connect the stories, which take place in the lives of one family over thirty years. However, I don't think that the narrator, Martha Plympton, does it justice. She merely reads it aloud without assuming the voices of any of the characters. Adult or child, male or female, drunk or sober, nun or college professor, they all sound the same. I'd recommend reading the book, rather than listening to it.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Joyce
- 04-15-07
beautifully written
This beautifully written book is not what I expected. It uses the devise of the short story, each story telling one episode in the life of one member of the family. The book is essentially a collection of short stories. Each story could stand on its own. I would have liked this book better if it were presented to be a group of short stories. I kept waiting for something to tie the stories together, but they never really are tied together. The only thing that kept me going to finish the book was the beauty of the writing. It is slow, not a lot happens, and, as another reviewer comments, most of the action happens 'off stage'. I rated this book for quality, not for content.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jeanne Kaiser
- 10-29-06
A Jewel of a Book
This book is probably not for everyone. Not a lot happens and a lot of the big things that do happen take place off stage. But I thought it was just wonderful. The author uses a series of scenes from the lives of each of the characters to give us a fully realized picture of one family's life. No melodrama-but I had tears in my eyes a the end.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jana
- 05-20-07
Boring
I got about halfway through and gave up. Like other reviewers said, nothing happens and to me, the characters never really come alive. I realized I was bored and it was like listening to my mother on the phone tell me about people I don't know. Sorry...I tried to like it but finally decided I was wasting my time.
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3 people found this helpful
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- IH
- 08-22-17
Context for your own story
What disappointed you about After This?
The whole book sets the context with imagery and style but never delivers on story or characters. The book describes one scene after another and moves forward with very brief and vague accounts of the events.
Has After This turned you off from other books in this genre?
No
Which scene was your favorite?
None. Kept reading thinking it would get better but it never did.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Good technical writing skills of the author. Her prior works must be well received: this one seems like an experiment.
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1 person found this helpful
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- M Ratcliffe
- 09-20-17
just didn't get it
listened to the book in 2 sittings... clearly I missed something. I just didn't the point of it,
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Overall
- Michael
- 09-28-06
Beautiful
Stunning! Highly recommended! McDermott paints pictures with words, melodies with sentences. Literature as art. Plimpton's narration only adds to the beauty. If you love books, listen here.
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4 people found this helpful
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- happybooker
- 02-27-13
AFTER THIS, I want to read or listen to more!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
AFTER THIS is very well written and narrated. There is not a false note anywhere.
For those of us who grew up in a similar milieu, this book is a "remembrance of things past". McDermott writes fine social histories populated with 3 dimensional characters, many with their own back-stories.
I have often turned to fiction when studying history. Yes, we need test books, lectures, articles,etc., but I find that by reading different authors who do diligent research in their genre are a great source of ancillary information and entertainment. Back door history at its best can be a great teaching/learning tool. This is a history narration I understand. I lived it. Well done Ms. McDermott and Ms.Plimpton!
What other book might you compare After This to and why?
THE EDGE OF SADNESS by Edwin O'Connor. Boston Irish in the 1950's. Pulitzer Prize winner.
Mary Gordon, Gail, Godwin, Madeline L'Engle - her personal history.
Have you listened to any of Martha Plimpton’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
She gives a wonderful performance in this book. I will be looking for other narrations.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Karen
- 03-03-07
Wonderful portrait of a family
This exquisitely written and beautifully read book takes some time to draw you in. As a prior review notes, not a lot 'happens' but the beauty of the story is in the fine details of the life of a family. Even the minor characters become vivid over time. Growing up on Long Island (the setting for the book), I can attest that it accurately captures the time, location and emotions of the period. Highly recommended.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Sarah
- 01-24-16
After This
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
The story itself
What could Alice McDermott have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Character development, not jumping years, less focus on insignificant details
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Martha Plimpton?
She was a pretty good narrator
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from After This?
I wouldn't have published it like that at all
Any additional comments?
There was zero character development. The only way I knew something had happened is they mentioned it at a later part in the book. There were so many insignificant details that seemed like a waste of time. The story was just awful.
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