After Annie

Quindlen’s trademark wisdom and bestselling subjects—family, the emotions and secrets of people in a small town—are at the center of this novel about triumph over adversity and the power of love to transcend time, by the author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and One True Thing.

"After Annie is Anna Quindlen's new, wise and heartfelt novel of connection, of loss and love and the power of both."—Amy Bloom

“Anna Quindlen tells a family story that's at once candid and complex—and ultimately quite hopeful.”—Claire Lombardo

When Annie Brown, a fun-loving woman, suddenly dies, her husband, best friend, and her children all struggle to find ways to go on after the loss of the woman who was the center of their lives, and who made life happy, fun, and secure. Her husband is overwhelmed with four children to raise, and turns to his teenage daughter for help, and to an old girlfriend for solace. Annie’s best friend struggles again with opioid addiction, having depended on Annie for support through addiction and recovery. Annie’s daughter discovers disturbing truths about life in a small town, including at her new best friend’s house, where she stumbles upon a confusing secret that suggests sexual abuse. These and other characters reconfigure their lives and learn how to go on, after Annie.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of the desires and feelings of ordinary people, this beautiful novel is about how loss and mistakes can lead to finding, including the ways that, through adversity, people can grow, and come to a stronger understanding of themselves and empathy for others. As the New York Times said about Quindlen’s fiction, “Where so much is about what vanishes, there is also a deep beating heart of what also stays.”