And the world that solidified by happenstance for Francis and all the other characters here, blows apart in the same way.īy switching perspective in every chapter, so that the narrative moves forward through the voice and world view of almost every member of the two families here, Keane develops her characters far beyond glib stereotypes. Then, about 20 years into the story, a horrible incident takes place. Two of their kids become close, but the couples don't, mostly because Brian's wife, a nurse named Anne, is "off," in a way nobody has the therapeutic language at that time to grasp. Both young cops get married and within a few years wind up living next door to each other in a suburb just north of the city. Mary Beth Keane's previous books include The Walking People and Fever.įrancis' meditation on how a series of happenstances solidify into a life is what Keane so beautifully dramatizes in Ask Again, Yes. Francis, who's a sensitive young guy, is overwhelmed for a minute by the career he's pretty much just fallen into. When they arrive they find the owner lying dead in a pool of blood. Two rookie cops, an Irish immigrant named Francis Gleeson and his partner, Brian Stanhope, are on foot patrol in the Bronx when they answer a call about an armed robbery in progress at a nearby bodega.
Books about the dilapidated New York of the '70s and '80s have been having "a moment" ever since Patti Smith's memoir, Just Kids, was published in 2010 and, though Keane's novel, which takes place far away from Smith's punk hangouts, goes on to span 40 years, its opening scene of a city gone haywire sets the emotional mood for the story that follows. It's one of those delicate titles that instantly goes poof! into the air but that's the only strike there is against Keane's novel which is, otherwise, one of the most unpretentiously profound books I've read in a long time.Īsk Again, Yes opens up in 1973 in New York City. That's what everyone I've raved to about this book has said to me a couple of minutes after I've told them the title. Mary Beth Keane's new novel is called Ask Again, Yes. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Ask Again, Yes Author Mary Beth Keane
0 kommentar(er)
