After Annie

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centred their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie's best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie's support. It is Annie's daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood.

Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.

Written in Quindlen's emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.

About the Author

Anna Quindlen is the author of the bestselling novels Blessings and Rise and Shine, amongst others, and of the non-fiction titles Living Out Loud, Thinking Out Loud and A Short Guide to a Happy Life. Her New York Times column 'Public and Private' won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She is currently a columnist for Newsweek and lives with her husband and children in New York.

Reviews

"After Annie is Anna Quindlen’s new wise and heartfelt novel of connection, of loss and love and the power of both. It celebrates the friends and family we have, mourns our great and small losses, and helps us find the unexpected light in the dark places we all have" —Amy Bloom, author of In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss

"A new Anna Quindlen novel is always cause for celebration. After Annie might just be my favourite one yet. It’s a beautiful and deeply moving story about love, loss, friendship, marriage, family and community from one of our wisest chroniclers of modern life. I treasured every page" —J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers

"After Annie is a novel about loss – and yet its pages are full of life and heart. With her deft interiority and spot-on depiction of the small moments that bring characters to life, Anna Quindlen tells a family story that’s at once candid and complex – and ultimately quite hopeful" —Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had

"A quietly revelatory and gently gleaming gem of a book… The very best thing about this book might be the way Quindlen, an anthropologist of domesticity, catalogues the sparklingly random moments that make up human experience" —New York Times Book Review

Dimensions: 15.3 x 1.85 x 23.4 cm