Book Review: "After Annie" by Anna Quindlen

It's mid-July and if you haven't noticed yet, I'm running an unofficial writing competition where you basically tell me the story behind a song which has an important meaning to you. There have been some brilliant entries so far and it's getting very difficult to even see who is going to win. I'll have to make a spreadsheet or something but I am really not sure. Anyways, After Annie is a book about familial resistance done in a way which I have never seen before. I only had a few issues with this one but I think I can put most of them aside for the sake of the heart of the book. If you've enjoyed books like The Berry Pickers then I think this should be somewhere on that TBR.

Annie is the mother figure of the Brown family and suddenly dies of a brain aneurysm at the age of 37 which of course, leaves her family devastated and lost. After her death, things begin to go wrong in family relations since she was really the mediator keeping everyone at bay and emotionally stable. Honestly, what better way to show the unpaid emotional labour of women in home and marriage than to have her die and everything go to shit? I know. The author, I believe, is aware of this and really drives it home and we also see it in the eldest daughter who must unwillingly step into this role without really any knowledge of how it's supposed to go down.

Her husband, Bill, becomes to lose control of daily chores and emotional achoring because of course, there is nobody there to do it now. I wish I had more sympathy for this guy but on every page he's on, he shows how inept he is. I ended up more or less thinking 'why did Annie marry this guy?' rather than 'sorry for your loss'. I have to admit that the one thing I had a problem with in this book was that I found the character of Bill just rather annoying and childish. Again, like I wrote in my review of We Are Water by Wally Lamb - it's all a little saccharine for me.

I feel most sorry for the daughter, Ali. She's only 13 but must emotionally mature so quickly. She ends up doing all of the emotional unpaid labour and looks after her brothers and her father. Since there is an adult in this situation already, this is so entirely unfair on her. It's not her fault her dad's an idiot. Why is she being punished out of her childhood for that? Ali often struggles with her own emotional problems but instead of getting any support from the useless adult in her home, she has to go to therapy instead. I genuinely felt terrible for this kid - it must be so horrible for her when the only adult left in her life is the one who is entirely useless.

Annemarie is Annie's old friend whom Annie was actually keeping from relapsing and so, you can imagine what happened once Annie had died. Annemarie is another one of those adults who can't process her emotions but that's mainly because she was being anchored by her best friend. I know this may not be a healthy way of doing things but if it's the difference between life and death then you've got to try something. I don't think Annie knew she was going to die there and then and so it was like the anchor was yanked out of the ocean and accidentally hit the boat. There's a huge hole and now the whole ship is sinking.

There's so many other characters in this mix including Annie's sons who all suffer quite badly for children - especially the youngest who, at the beginning, is sure his mother is coming back. There's several storylines which converge on themselves to create a picture of resilience in the family. Even though I still didn't really like Bill's character by the end, he did try -- no matter how pathetic his attempts were at doing so. Apart from that though, the writing was immersive and emotional, often lingering on thoughts and feelings for just the right amount of time.