Alice McDermott’s powerful novel is a vivid portrait of an
American family in the middle decades of the twentieth
century. Witty, compassionate, and wry, it captures the
social, political, and spiritual upheavals of those decades
through the experiences of a middle-class couple, their four
children, and the changing worlds 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, Jacob, 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.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy