After You'd Gone

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Last season we selected a Booker Prize finalist for Discover, Trezza Azzopardi's The Hiding Place. This season, we've chosen another first novel from across the Great Pond with a similar sense of truths hidden, as if suspended under ice. In Maggie O'Farrell's gripping debut, Alice Raikes, a grieving young widow, takes a train from London to visit her family in Scotland. But after witnessing something shocking in the restroom at the station, she abruptly heads back to London without a word, leaving her sisters perplexed. A few hours later, Alice steps out into traffic, is hit by a car, and lies in a coma. Was it an accident or a suicide attempt? Family gathers at her bedside as Alice drifts in and out of consciousness, remembering her childhood, her first romance, and the love of her life -- her now-deceased husband, John, a journalist felled by a bomb. Like a lens slowly coming into focus, Alice's voice is blurred with the voices of her loved ones, until the true image of Alice's identity becomes clear. A fascinating story of families in which painful, buried truths finally come to the surface, After You'd Gone is also a warning of sorts to those who hold secrets. With searing honesty and depth, Maggie O'Farrell combines a tragic love story with tension-filled moments of suspense cleverly mixed with the ingredients of coincidence and chance. An ambitious debut, this first novel promises to break the hearts of those who search the truths lying within its pages. (Spring 2001 Selection)