The Mom Dies While Stirring Mashed Potatoes
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Let me start by saying that if it is written by Anna Quindlen, I want to read it. This is because one of her books is an all-time favorite of mine. That book was called, One True Thing. It was written in the 1990s and in that same era, it was turned into a movie starring Meryl Streep, William Hurt, and Renee Zellweger. One True Thing is about a woman dying of cancer and how it impacts her family, particularly her daughter and husband. Since there are similarities between the books, let me go on to say that in the earlier book, the daughter is a young adult. She has left the nest, has a full-blown career and an apartment, but she does not live in the same city as her parents. She feels pressured to give up her life and move home to take care of her mother while the father (and a brother too) absent themselves from the situation. We then witness the demise and eventual death of the mother under her daughter’s care. Suffice it to say that the father was more or less useless and that I disliked him more with each passing page.
Interestingly, After Annie is also about a woman who dies and about what that does to her daughter and husband. But there are two big differences. In this case, the death starts the book instead of ending it. As the first sentence tells us, “Annie Brown died right before dinner.” Indeed, Annie dropped dead in the kitchen of her home as she stirred the mashed potatoes.
Another difference is that the daughter, Ali, is still young. She is thirteen and the oldest of four children. Her brothers are eleven, eight, and six. But in this case, too, it looks like the dad is going to be no help in the horrible situation. As they call 911, and Annie gets carted away by the EMTs, her husband, Bill, goes to the hospital with her, without the tiniest thought about his children. That falls to Ali. And it continues to fall to Ali for a lot of the book. When he quickly takes up with his ex-girlfriend from high school, I was disliking him more with each passing page.
Another difference in the new book is the presence of a fourth main character, Annie’s lifelong friend, Annemarie.
If you are wondering how I got to four main characters when I added Annemarie, it’s because Annie is a huge presence in the book. The other three – Ali, Bill, and Annemarie – are almost channeling her in that they know exactly what she would be telling them in every situation and they act on her wise advice. Thus, we get to know Annie well, as a best friend, a wife, and a mom.
Though the main story line in the book is how everyone handles life after Annie, there are other things going on as well. Annemarie struggles with a drug addiction. Ali has a good friend struggling with an equally massive problem, not to mention the fact that she has to worry about the care and feeding of her brothers. And then there is Bill, who struggles with his life’s trajectory. As the author tells us, “Now that [Annie] was a ghost, would she know the things he’d tried to keep from her? Would she know that he’d never wanted to get married in the beginning, that he thought four was at least two kids too many, that sometimes his favorite place to be was in his van, alone?”
I will say that by book’s end I liked Bill, but he had to grow a lot for me to get there. Fortunately, he does so with the help of the school psychologist. It also helped that he finally stood up to his mother – just as Annie would have done were she still alive!
I haven’t mentioned the format of the book. It is told in five sections. It starts in winter, which is when Annie dies. It then follows the characters through spring, summer, fall, and back to winter again. In this manner, we see that time does indeed heal some wounds. And of course, we see that life goes on.
Before I close, here are two “coincidences” I’d like to share. The first one ties the new book with One True Thing, the Quindlen book I mentioned from the 1990’s. When Annemarie and her husband have difficulties, he says he is not sure she is capable of love. Her response mimics the title of the earlier book. She says, “He was wrong. She’d had one real true unshakeable love in her life, but it wasn’t her husband. It was Annie.”
The second oddity is this – I wondered as I read the book why the author chose for the two adult females to have such similar names, Annie and Annemarie. Before long, I had to add the author’s name as well – Anna. What are we supposed to learn from this fact? I really don’t know, but I hope you’ll tell me if you figure it out after reading this terrific book.
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