Afterwards

Description

The new novel, another remarkable story of the complexities of guilt and moral responsibility, from the Booker-shortlisted author of The Dark Room and Field Study. To love someone, need you know everything about them? When Alice and Joseph meet, they fall quickly into a tentative but serious relationship. Both are still young and hopeful of each other, but each brings with them an emotional burden. Alice's family is full of absences and Joseph harbours an unspeakable secret from his time in the army in Northern Ireland. When Alice's widowed grandfather begins to tell Joseph about his RAF experiences in 1950s Kenya, something still raw is tapped in Joseph; his reaction to the older man's unburdening of guilt is both unexpected and devastating for them all.

The daughter of an Australian father and a German mother, Rachel Seiffert was born in Oxford and lives in London. She is the author the Booker-shortlisted novel The Dark Room and an acclaimed collection of short stories, Field Study. She was named one of Granta's 'Best of Young British' and one of 25 women writers to watch in the 'Orange Futures' promotion.

Masterful, delightfully controlled prose...This highly engaging novel continues to reveal itself long after it is read * Sunday Telegraph * Carefully unsentimental...remarkable...we are given the complicated substance of unadorned lives * Sunday Times * Compelling... A daring work, sure to gain her greater recognition..the portrait of the ex-soldier Joseph is as fine a depiction of a man in crisis as you will read * Daily Telegraph * A remarkable feat... precise and searing... One of the most intelligent and ethical writers of her generation * Literary Review * Elegant... Authentic... One of the significant accomplishments of Afterwards is a coiling suspense driven more by psychology than circumstance * New York Times *