AFTER YOU'D GONE by Maggie O'Farrell

 It's five stars from me, Maggie O'Farrell's first novel, way back in 2000. Outstanding. I can't fault it, it is just fabulous, from its mysterious opening with Alice Raikes making a spontaneous leap onto a train from London to Edinburgh, meeting her sisters at the railway station, going to the toilet, seeing something so unexpected, surprising that she immediately jumps back on the next train to London. What on earth??? Then right to the ending, to the very last words when another completely unexpected and surprising thing takes place. I was totally enthralled from beginning to end, and wanted it to keep going. 

The day of Alice's fateful trip to Edinburgh ends with her lying in a hospital bed, in Intensive Care on life support, not expected to live, following her apparent intentional stepping out into a line of London traffic. Why??? And then the un-peeling begins. Two stories are told here, the story of Alice's life and that of her mother Ann. There is extensive intermixing of the two time lines, and gliding between the two main characters, even within the chapters, as the story builds up to that moment in the bathroom at Edinburgh railway station. We follow the story of how Alice's parents met, her childhood, her boyfriends and eventually the man she falls bonkers in love with and he with her. Ann's story is also told, beginning with fragments of her childhood, then her time at university, how she met Alice's father and their family life. There are complications in both marriages - that of Alice and John, and that of Ann and Ben. Quite different and unexpected complications. The plot regularly returns to Alice's hospital bed where she lies, the sad and frightened talk of her family going on around her, the upsetting and painful conversations with the medical staff. It is all so ordinary and yet it isn't. Oh, I wish I could say more about the plot...

The writing is sublime, perfection, how the author holds the lives of these two women, slowly building up to the day of Alice's accident is effortless. The characters are all extremely ordinary, relatable, fully developed and nuanced beings. You ache for all of them. The fluidity with which the plot moves back and forth from the present to many stages of the past, and back again is just so easy. I want to get my own copy of this book, so I can read it again sometime in the future, but I have to hand this back to my lovely friend, because it is one of her favourite books of all time.