After You'd Gone

A Novel

By: Maggie O'Farrell

Narrated by: Lesley Mackie

After You’d Gone is the groundbreaking debut novel from National Book Critics Circle Award winner Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait. A stunning, bestselling novel of wrenching love and grief.

Alice Raikes takes a train from London to Scotland to visit her family, but when she gets there she witnesses something so shocking that she insists on returning to London immediately. A few hours later, Alice is lying in a coma after an accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt. Alice's family gathers at her bedside and as they wait, argue, and remember, long-buried tensions emerge. The more they talk, the more they seem to conceal. Alice, meanwhile, slides between varying levels of consciousness, recalling her past and a love affair that recently ended. A riveting story that skips through time and interweaves multiple points of view, After You'd Gone is a novel of stunning psychological depth, marking the debut of a major literary talent.

Critic reviews

“A memorable deubt.”—Daily Telegraph

“O’Farrell has written a deeply elusive book, one made more mysterious, somehow, by her wonderful sense of detail.” —Los Angeles Times

“An engrossing study of loss and family ties, delivered with the page-turning pace of a thriller.” —Independent on Sunday

“Utterly beautiful . . . poetic and wise. . . . a lovely and fully realized performance.” —The Boston Globe

“Life stands still as you turn the pages. [After You’d Gone is] an amazing study of love and grief as it poses the wrenching question: What do you do with all the love you have for someone when they’re gone?” —Glamour

“A memorable debut and a headily promising one. . . . A fine novel . . . a work of depth.” —The Baltimore Sun

“While skillfully employing interwoven multiple points of view. . . . O’Farrell performs a traditional, old-fashioned storytelling striptease, seductively unveiling layer after layer of revelatory secrets.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Beautifully written contemporary fiction.” —The Sunday Times

“O’Farrell is an astute observer of little behaviors, the telling fidgets and habits of everyday existence. . . . The complex structure works beautifully, communicating the shared and interlocking sufferings of the Raikes women through its carefully worked-out layering of narrative lines.” —Kirkus Reviews