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A review by archytas
After Story by Larissa Behrendt
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
"It’s the best kind of fantasy, the most irresistible – to create a world, one that other people visit, that is shaped the way you want it to be. Don’t we all have an imaginary place we escape off to as we fall asleep or drift off into daydream, a place where life is better, people are kinder and we are a better version of ourselves?"
Well, this was a gem. The story is told through alternating chapters describing the same day's events on a literary tour of England, our POV characters are a mother and her adult daughter, both of whose lives have been shaped by a terrible crime. Behrendt gives us two very different voices and perspectives, and the book fiercely commits to each perspective, pushing the reader into spaces of empathy and ambiguity, as well as some truths which are not ambiguous at all. Jasmine, our younger protagonist, is troubled by one of her cases, broadening the conversation in the book about crime and punishment, trauma and recovery, blame and redemption.
The book is not just about trauma though - it is fundamentally about connection, and how a shift of place and perspective can facilitate growth. One of my favourite aspects of the novel was the growing cohesion of the tour group. Behrendt captures perfectly the ways that groups bond and change each other. Despite the subject matter, the book brims with light and humour, with compassion and hope. Both narrators draw lessons from the lives of the authors - Dickens, Woolf, Sackville-West, Shakespeare, Hardy, Austen and the Brontes. Somehow this positions our contemporary miseries as part of history, and societies that both change and repeat the same patterns. That Jasmine and her mum often view these lives differently add to ways we connect to people and to stories around what we need, and this is presented without a skerrick of cynicism (as distinct from critique).
All of this could be very on the nose - partly I'm really in admiration/awe of how Behrendt never slides into contrived territory. Her professor felt a little like a collection of particularly eye-rolling "old white man" opinions at first, but the book contextualises and broadens that characterisation as it weaves on.
This is going to be one of my top recommendations of the year, I can tell.
Well, this was a gem. The story is told through alternating chapters describing the same day's events on a literary tour of England, our POV characters are a mother and her adult daughter, both of whose lives have been shaped by a terrible crime. Behrendt gives us two very different voices and perspectives, and the book fiercely commits to each perspective, pushing the reader into spaces of empathy and ambiguity, as well as some truths which are not ambiguous at all. Jasmine, our younger protagonist, is troubled by one of her cases, broadening the conversation in the book about crime and punishment, trauma and recovery, blame and redemption.
The book is not just about trauma though - it is fundamentally about connection, and how a shift of place and perspective can facilitate growth. One of my favourite aspects of the novel was the growing cohesion of the tour group. Behrendt captures perfectly the ways that groups bond and change each other. Despite the subject matter, the book brims with light and humour, with compassion and hope. Both narrators draw lessons from the lives of the authors - Dickens, Woolf, Sackville-West, Shakespeare, Hardy, Austen and the Brontes. Somehow this positions our contemporary miseries as part of history, and societies that both change and repeat the same patterns. That Jasmine and her mum often view these lives differently add to ways we connect to people and to stories around what we need, and this is presented without a skerrick of cynicism (as distinct from critique).
All of this could be very on the nose - partly I'm really in admiration/awe of how Behrendt never slides into contrived territory. Her professor felt a little like a collection of particularly eye-rolling "old white man" opinions at first, but the book contextualises and broadens that characterisation as it weaves on.
This is going to be one of my top recommendations of the year, I can tell.