Ask Again, Yes: A Novel - Softcover

Keane, Mary Beth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1982106999 ISBN 13: 9781982106997

Publisher: Scribner, 2020

One of the most beloved novels of the year, the 2019 Tonight Show Summer Reads pick and “magnificent” (NPR) New York Times bestseller offers “profound insights about blame, forgiveness, and abiding love” (People) about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the friendship between their children, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. 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.

“A beautiful novel, bursting at the seams with empathy” (Elle), Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting and “smartly told” (Entertainment Weekly) exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that 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 forty years. Heartbreaking and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes is a gorgeous portrait of a relationship haunted by echoes from the past, yet marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.

About the Author:

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.

Review:

“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

“Keane writes with acute sensitivity and her characters are consistently, authentically lived-in. . . . smartly told.”
—Entertainment Weekly

"I devoured this astonishing tale of two families linked by chance, love, and tragedy. Mary Beth Keane gives us characters so complex and alive that I find myself still thinking of them days after turning the final page. A must-read."
—J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Saints for All Occasions

“Mary Beth Keane takes on one of the most difficult problems in fiction—how to write about human decency. In Ask Again, Yes, Keane creates a layered emotional truth that makes a compelling case for compassion over blame, understanding over grudge, and the resilience of hearts that can accept the contradictions of love.”
— Louise Erdrich, author of The Round House

“Ask Again, Yes is a powerful and moving novel of family, trauma, and the defining moments in people’s lives. Mary Beth Keane is a writer of extraordinary depth, feeling and wit. Readers will love this book, as I did.”
—Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion

“Remarkable.”
—Booklist

“Mary Beth Keane looks past the veneer that covers ordinary moments and into the very heart of real life. There’s a Tolstoyan gravity, insight, and moral heft in these pages, and Keane’s ability to plumb the depths of authentic feeling while avoiding sentimentality leaves one shaking one’s head in frank admiration. This wonderful book is so many things: a gripping family drama; a sensitive meditation on mental illness; a referendum on the power and cost of loyalty; a ripping yarn that takes us down into the depths and back up; in short, a triumph.”                                        
—Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1982106999
• ISBN 13: 9781982106997
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432