Meandering between perspectives with ease, Alice McDermott paints a credible picture of a family at the close of the World War II in "After This." The novel is fundamentally about lives formulated by happenstance. McDermott illuminates moments in the lives of the Keane family that the reader would not anticipate.
The reader is not invited to many weddings or deathbeds; McDermott chooses the moments of least consequence, unexceptional events that illustrate the attraction between spouses or the precarious balance on which friendships rely. These times that unexpectedly change the course of events but are subtle enough to be overlooked, even in retrospect, are drawn on with great grace by McDermott. Through this use of chance as illustrations of life, McDermott manages to capture the unpredictability that guides the course of a lifetime.
McDermott does not take her reader far. The setting of New York is abandoned only briefly and the reader is carried through fewer than three decades following the end of the war. Despite the apparent narrow scope of the novel's content, most Americans will be able to identify at least one element in the Keane family's history that exists in their own lives.
There are dead soldiers, broken limbs, births and circumstantial friendships, favorite college bars, European romances and unconclusive dates, all of which provide the reader with entrances into the American reality into which McDermott taps. McDermott tracks the societal, familial and sexual changes that arrive with the close of World War II.
McDermott is acutely aware of the way that America's development of her citizens' freedoms affects the dynamics within the Keane family. She deftly draws parallels between wars, friendships, and marriages, but there are never instances when she is caught explaining consequences to the reader. There is an all-encompassing subtlety in her writing that manages to strike low-lying chords that reverberate throughout McDermott's novel.
Fluidity is inherent in "After This." It is as if the author dipped her fingers into the vast supply of scenery from this family's life and picked almost at random. While the moments are not directly connected, the palpable overlap between the characters, be it genetic or circumstantial, holds together the events' sequence.
In addition to this blend, the scenes posses a muted quality; the reader watches from outside the experience, the distance imposed not only by the page but also through the presence of an unexpressed predestination. The detachment does not serve to alienate but rather emphasizes the inevitability of life's continuation no matter the change of plans.
This family's experience is not out of the ordinary, but "After This" is neither emotionless nor dull. The universality of the occurrences and their simplicity will resonate with the reader.