After You

by Annie Garrett Narrated by Mary Beth Quillin

Overview

It begins with a postcard from Riley Brackett's wife to Clare McClendon, informing her that Riley has been in a serious accident and lost his memory of everything but her and the summer they spent together when Clare was seventeen. Could Clare come to Maine? Perhaps seeing her will cause Riley to recall his wife and two children, and the intervening years. Clare, who is dealing with a faltering marriage and her mother-in-law's cancer, agrees to the request against her better judgment. For Riley, things are now as they once were, and though Clare at first resists, she is soon caught up herself-in a way, as lost as he. With commitments to other people in their lives, there is no second chance for love-or is there? Annie Garrett ventures into Sue Miller and Elizabeth Berg territory with this moving novel about memory and its romantic, healing force in the present.

Editorial Reviews

Dawn Steel

Wow! Finally, a good old-fashioned love story. I got completely lost in the romance of this book. I loved the country. I loved the relationship. I loved the love. It's going to make a great movie.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A postcard bringing news of a boating accident prompts a 34-year-old married woman to revisit her first love affair in this sentimental novel. In flashbacks recounted to her friend Jojo over lunch in New York's Central Park, Clare McClendon relives the passion she had for fisherman Riley Brackett during the summer of her 17th year, which she spent in Maine after having been sent away from her Midwestern home because her mother was dying of cancer. Clare is now a successful TV broadcaster, but she feels estranged from her husband, Michael, who has become absorbed in his own mother's battle with cancer.

When Riley's wife pleads for Clare's help because Riley's head injury has rendered him amnesiac about everything but their affair, Clare feels she must go to Maine to try to reactivate Riley's memory. But the still-besotted Riley is unwilling to hear that the years have wrought a great many changes, namely both their marriages and a hinted-at illness for Clare. The plot at this point becomes manipulative and maudlin; that Clare, too, has had breast cancer, a fact that she doesn't reveal to Riley, seems designed to keep readers reaching for Kleenexes. The accumulation of physical and emotional pain is artificially palliated by Clare's epiphany that all life is a risk and that, while 'the sun is still shining,' one should embrace both memories and hopes for the future.

Library Journal

Like Garrett's previous Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground (LJ 1/96), this is the story of the reuniting of sweethearts after many years. Clare is dealing with some serious problems. Recovering from a mastectomy, she also suffers a loss of intimacy with husband Michael, who is stressed by his mother's demands as she succumbs to Alzheimer's. Into Clare's unhappy life comes a postcard from the wife of her first love, Riley. He has suffered a head injury and has forgotten his wife and children, remembering only his relationship with Clare from many years ago. Clare is asked to come and help him recover his full memory. She does so, and, in the process, she heals her own marriage. The ending somewhat redeems the contrived plot. Garrett (the pseudonym of former Entertainment Weekly staffer Kelli Pryor) has sold the film rights to DreamWorks. For larger popular fiction collections.--Carol J. Bissett, Dittlinger Memorial Lib., New Braunfels, TX

Kirkus Reviews

The pseudonymous celebrity journalist Garrett (Because I Wanted You, 1997, etc.) offers another wants-to-be-a-screenplay romance/thriller. At 34, with a husband she loves dearly and a successful career as a TV journalist, Clare McClendon is a troubled woman: her breast cancer has gone into remission, and sheþs still in mourning for the mother lost when she was just 17. When she receives a postcard from a woman sheþs never metþthe wife of Riley Brackett, Clareþs first love, whom sheþs not seen since the fateful summer before her mother diedþthe timing couldnþt be worse. Husband Michael is away, caring for his own dying mother, and Clare is at her most vulnerable, waiting for the latest cancer-test results. Scared and isolated, she impulsively journeys alone to rural Maine to help Riley Brackett recover from the amnesia he has as the result of a boating accident. Riley remembers nothing but Clareþnot his wife or his two daughters or anyone else. For a few days, Clare is swept up in the fantasy, but she soon starts to miss Michael; before she leaves, however, she tries to point Riley in the right directionþthat of his wife, kids, and the way of life heþs known forever. Rileyþs soap-opera-like condition, Michaelþs lack of presence and cartoonish family situation (his mother and father are both identical twins, and he grew up with four biological parents), and the spoiled, conceited, unlovable Clareþall make for a rather soppy, highly unrealistic tangle of weeds.

FEB/MAR 00 - AudioFile

This romantic fiction, in which Garrett creates a love triangle with a happy ending, has all the makings of a great chicflick. Claire yearns for the simplicity of her teenage fling, although she is currently married. Through plot twists and turns, Claire comes to realize she can’t go back in time. Gregor sounds like a young actress; she struggles with the male Maine accents but handles Claire’s voice passably well. Her strong point is portraying the 5-year-old daughter, whose shrill pitch sounds authentic. She seems a bit embarrassed during the love scenes but does a fair job overall. A.G.H. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169530476
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	04/17/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos