Afterwards - Softcover

Seiffert, Rachel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0434015512 ISBN 13: 9780434015511

Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

Serving in the British Army in Northern Ireland, Joseph shot and killed a man. A subsequent inquiry has cleared him of any inappropriate behaviour, yet, now returned to civilian life, he remains haunted by the experience. Working as a painter and decorator in London he meets Alice, and through her, her grandfather David, himself a veteran of the armed forces. In the 50s, David served in the RAF in Kenya, where unbeknown to his grand-daughter, he bombed Mau-Mau jungle hide-outs. In all probability and equally in the course of duty he too has blood on his hands. As soldier and pilot, both Joseph and he are innocent; as men, both perhaps are guilty. In this powerful exploration of guilt, war and the power of mankind's greatest yet all too frequently broken taboo, 'Thou shalt not kill', Rachel Seiffert delivers on the remarkable promise of The Dark Room and Field Study.

About this title

Review:

`Afterwards sees Seiffert wrap her masterful, delightfully controlled prose around conflicts more recent and morally ambiguous ... shunning politics and hyperbole, rejecting jargon in favour of effortful narration ... Seiffert patiently builds lives the reader can believe in and care about .... This highly engaging novel continues to reveal itself long after it is read. It is a book, like its protagonists, that gives up its secrets slowly.' -- The Sunday Telegraph

`Afterwards, Seiffert's superb new novel, is her most integrated and accomplished work yet ... Seiffert's skill is to conjure the ordinariness of those who do wrong, the way in which innocent actions - joining the army, meeting a man in a pub - escalate into crises. She evokes the realness of how memory works: the triggers, the bullet points of a narrative, the sense rather than the whole story. This is one of those books that reminds you how perverse it is that we, as readers, demand that something we know to be fiction seem both real and plausible.'
-- FT Magazine

`As the tension builds, the pace of Afterwards punches on like a pump-action steady stream of bullets ... it's bleakly compelling ...' -- The Daily Telegraph

`produces moments of thrilling intensity.'
-- Telegraph

Book 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. (2004-11-09)

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0434015512
• ISBN 13: 9780434015511
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336