- DESCRIPTION
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- EDITORIAL REVIEWS
How much can a family forgive?
Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie NYPD cops, are neighbors in the suburbs. What happens behind closed doors in both houses--the loneliness of Francis's wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian's wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.
In Mary Beth Keane's extraordinary novel, a lifelong friendship and love blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next thirty years. Heartbreaking and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes is a gorgeous and generous portrait of the daily intimacies of marriage and the power of forgiveness.
Mary Beth Keane attended Barnard College and the University of Virginia, where she received an MFA. She has been named one of the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35," and was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing. She currently lives in Pearl River, New York with her husband and their two sons. She is the author of The Walking People, Fever, and Ask Again, Yes.
"One of the most unpretentiously profound books I've read in a long time... Keane writes with deep familiarity and precision about the lives of this particular generation... As a writer, Keane reminds me a lot of Ann Patchett: Both have the magical ability to seem to be telling 'only' a closely-observed domestic tale that transforms into something else deep and, yes, universal. In Keane's case, that 'something else' is a story about forgiveness and acceptance... modestly magnificent." -- Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air
"A beautiful novel, bursting at the seams with empathy." -- Brianna Kovan, Elle
"Keane's novel is a rare example of propulsive storytelling with profound insights about blame, forgiveness and abiding love." -- People Magazine
"A profound story... Keane's gracefully restrained prose gives her characters dignity... shows how difficult forgiveness can be--and how it amounts to a kind of hard-won grace." -- Vogue
