After Annie: A Novel

Known for her candid and reflective writing about grief, Anna Quindlen crafts stories that present a vulnerable and nuanced exploration of the impact of loss on communities and individuals. Quindlen’s work acknowledges the deep pain of loss while simultaneously illuminating the moments of resilience, growth, and unexpected beauty that can emerge amid sorrow. Her 10th novel, After Annie, highlights the experiences of three individuals who are left behind when Annie Brown suddenly dies from an aneurysm. One of the survivors is her daughter Ali, who is only 13 when she loses her mother. Also left behind are Annie’s husband, Bill, and best friend, Annemarie, who must contemplate the prospect of a life without Annie’s friendship and support.

Anna Quindlen was a teenager when her mother died of ovarian cancer, and even though she is now in her 70s, the loss is still an ever-present part of her identity. Twenty-two years after her mother’s death, Quindlen lost her sister-in-law, and when she was tasked with writing her obituary, she began to think about how loss changes those left behind. In her May 1994 New York Times article entitled “Public and Private; Life After Death,” Quindlen muses on the messiness of processing grief and the difficulties of navigating public settings while torn apart by the private depths of sorrow. For example, she reflects on the insufficiency of words in describing the dead and comforting the survivors. She also writes of humans’ desperate desire for closure and a prescribed path toward healing. From Quindlen’s experience and research, she concludes that closure is a myth and the only way to move forward from loss is to integrate it into daily life and see it as an integral part of identity. In After Annie, Ali fears being labeled the “dead mother girl,” but from Quindlen’s vantage point, accepting that label as part of herself is Ali’s only way through to the other side of loss. 

Thus, Quindlen emphasizes the importance of acknowledging grief as a profound and individual journey that does not conform to societal expectations or timelines for recovery. Quindlen posits that death comes quickly, but loss brings unending punishment; she observes that people are surprised when they realize that their pain is still just as fresh years later. She writes about how people conceal this enduring pain even though their losses inevitably shape their present and their future, and she explores these prominent themes through the characters in After Annie. As Quindlen says of the grieving process:

Grief remains one of the few things that can silence us. It is a whisper in the world and a clamor within. More than sex, more than faith, even more than its usher death, grief is unspoken, publicly ignored except for those moments at the funeral that are over too quickly or the conversations among the cognoscenti, those of us who recognize in one another a kindred chasm deep in the center of who we are. (Quindlen, Anna. “Public & Private; Life After Death.” The New York Times, 4 May 1994).

Quindlen dedicates After Annie to her mother, but she insists that her mother’s death is not the inspiration for the novel. Instead, the story’s purpose is to explore what she knows to be true from her own experience: that the loss of a parent forever alters a person. Still, she also holds that such an alteration can evolve over time into empowerment and inspiration.