{ "item_title" : "After Annie", "item_author" : [" Anna Quindlen "], "item_description" : "Click Here For the Autographed CopyPart of Quindlen's gift is that you don't just read about these characters, you inhabit them. . . . Luminous with life, hope and the power of love.--People (A Book of the Week Pick)[A] quietly revelatory and gently gleaming gem of a book.--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)Anna Quindlen's trademark wisdom on family, friendship, and the ties that bind us are at the center of this novel about the power of love to transcend loss and triumph over adversity, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and One True Thing.When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie's children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life.Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody's fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.Written in Quindlen's emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is about hope, and about the unexpected power of adversity to change us in profound and indelible ways.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/59/322/980/0593229800_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "30.00", "online_price" : "30.00", "our_price" : "30.00", "club_price" : "30.00", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "30.00" } }

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Annie Brown was the proverbial glue of her family. She picked up her husband, Bill, at a party and they married after their fling led to a pregnancy—the first of many for the Brown family. Annie brought joy to the patients at the nursing home where she worked. She provided accountability for her best friend, Annemarie, when the temptation to revisit addictions flared. Beyond Bill’s trusted life partner, Annie was both role model and caregiver for their daughter and three sons. So when she dies, suddenly, the people around her are not simply bereft—they’re lost. As Bill reflects on his wife’s death, he observes the disjointed way Annie’s loved ones stumble through their grief: “There was some kind of river of loss underneath them all. There was no way to know how to move on.” 

In Anna Quindlen’s latest novel, After Annie, the novelist turns her masterful eye on the lives of the people closest to Annie: Bill, their daughter Ali, and Annemarie. As Quindlen cycles through their perspectives during the first year following Annie’s death, we see the ways the characters circle each other. Ali becomes an adult the moment her mom falls to the floor, absorbing the responsibilities her dad is too shell-shocked to take on. Bill, a plumber, responds to endless calls from the town’s single women. Annemarie initially makes time for Ali but soon drifts away as her addiction surges again. 

Throughout her career, Quindlen’s fiction and nonfiction alike have showcased her attention to detail and ability to weave compelling narratives from the common experiences that comprise life. After Annie follows in the footsteps of Miller’s Valley, Still Life with Bread Crumbs, Alternate Side and other Quindlen novels that examine families and the people in their immediate orbits. After Annie is a heartfelt, nuanced portrait of life after loss.