Ask Again, Yes - Mary Beth Keane

 

Description

'A powerful and moving novel of family, trauma, and the defining moments in people's lives from a writer of extraordinary depth, feeling and wit. Readers will love this book, as I did' Meg Wolitzer, bestselling author of The Female Persuasion and The Wife
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A gripping and compassionate family drama set between neighbours in suburban New York

Gillam, upstate New York: a town of ordinary, big-lawned suburban houses. The Gleesons have recently moved there and soon welcome the Stanhopes as their new neighbours. Lonely Lena Gleeson wants a friend but Anne Stanhope - cold, elegant, unstable - wants to be left alone.

It's left to their children - Lena's youngest, Kate, and Anne's only child, Peter - to find their way to one another. To form a friendship whose resilience and love will be almost broken by the fault line dividing both families, and by the terrible tragedy that will engulf them all. A tragedy whose true origins only become clear many years later . . .

A story of love and redemption, faith and forgiveness, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood - villains lose their menace, and those who appeared innocent seem less so. It's a story of how, if we're lucky, the violence lurking beneath everyday life can be vanquished by the power of love.

Review

I really wanted to like this book so much more, but it really dragged in places.

Kate and Peter live next door to one another and become friends in the 1970s.  Something happens between the families, which means Peter and his family move away. But Peter and Kate never forget one another, they find each other again years later.

They say time heals everything, and in a way this book sets out to discover if that idiom is in fact true. This book covers some tricky issues very well, such as mental illness, and how it was viewed both back in the 70s and in more recent times.  

The Americanisms referred to and some of the way of life, especially from the 1970s, were lost on me and I felt that I missed out at times on really understanding and feeling connected to the characters. I never really warmed to any of them either. My biggest gripe with the book is that although the writing is good and at times some beautifully written scenes, it just went on for far too long in certain time frames.

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review.