Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane: 5/5.
Every couple of months I come across a book that puts me into what I call a “word coma” - it is so satisfying and fulfilling that I’m left unable to take in anything else for at least a day or two. Ask Again, Yes was one of those reads.
The story begins in 1970s New York as two men, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, begin their careers with the NYPD. Francis goes on to marry Lena and have three daughters, while Brian marries Anne and has a son. The two families wind up living next door to one another in a suburb north of the city, which leads to a close friendship between Francis’s youngest daughter Kate and Brian’s son Peter. A tragic event occurs, and the majority of the story deals with the fallout, exploring such themes as forgiveness, love, and parent-child relationships.
I loved this book. Keane struck me as a writer in the footsteps of Ann Patchett and Betty Smith, capable of taking seemingly small-scale family dramas and turning them into poignant, universal sagas that touch on a variety of themes. This novel is a story about growing up, about what we do when people we love hurt us, about trauma in a variety of forms, about mental illness and addiction, and about the possibility of forgiveness. The characters are so well-developed and Keane writes about them with so much empathy (though not necessarily sentimentality) that by the end, I even wished for a happy ending for the perceived villain of the story. The writing itself is engrossing, to the point that I put off several tasks just to be able to sit and read a few minutes longer.
This book probably isn’t for everybody, but you’ll know if it’s for you. If you are a fan of Betty Smith and Ann Patchett, if you love family dramas and literary fiction that delves into the human condition and questions it, then this is a book for you.
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