book review after story

Reading Matters

Book reviews of mainly modern & contemporary fiction

‘After Story’ by Larissa Behrendt

Fiction – paperback; UQP; 300 pages; 2021. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Larissa Behrendt’s After Story is a charming novel about a mother and daughter embarking on a tour of England’s most revered literary sites.

Unsurprisingly, the story has a bookish flavour, but it is much more than a simple travel tale, for it has unexpected depths relating to mother-daughter relationships, storytelling (both oral and written), community, colonialism, what it is to be an Aboriginal Australian, the value of education, the ability to navigate the world on your own terms , and the long shadow of grief and sexual abuse.

The tale is structured in a clever way. There’s the before and after sections of the trip, and then the trip itself, divided into days, and told from two different points of view, the mother’s (Della) and her adult daughter’s (Jasmine, formerly known as Jazzmine).

A painful past

In the prologue, we learn that when Jasmine was just a toddler, her seven-year-old sister Brittany went missing, stolen from her bed overnight. Her body was later found and a man has since been imprisoned for her murder. (The case is reminiscent of the shocking real-life murders of three Aboriginal children in Bowraville, NSW, in the early1990s, which is explored in the excellent true-crime book Bowraville by Dan Box .)

Twenty-five years on, the pain is still writ large, particularly on Della who was blamed for Brittany’s death, an accusation that has had a long-lasting impact. Her grief, eased by alcohol, has recently been compounded by the death of Brittany’s father, Jimmy, six months earlier, and that of Aunty Elaine, the matriarch of the family whose wise voice and counsel resonate throughout this novel even though we never actually meet her as a character.

The 10-day trip is a chance for Jasmine to escape the stress of her day job as a criminal lawyer in the city. When her travel partner pulls out, she invites her mother along instead, hoping it will bring them closer together but knowing it will probably test her patience to an impossible degree. She turns out to be right on both counts.

Twin narratives

The novel is told in two distinct voices in alternate chapters so we get to compare and contrast how each person experiences the world.

Della’s voice is naive and unsophisticated but honest and genuine. She occasionally says the wrong thing at the wrong time, but she is kind and considerate. Initially, she doesn’t want to go on the trip but once she arrives in London and begins to have her eyes opened up to new ideas, new experiences and new ways of being, she relishes the travel experience. Her opening up to the world and the way she shares her heart-felt perspectives is a joy to behold.

By comparison, Jasmine’s voice is clearly more educated and articulate. The first in her family to go to university, she’s created a new life for herself in Sydney. She rarely goes back home and, as a consequence, has a strained relationship with her older sister, Leigh Anne, who sees her as having abandoned her familial responsibilities. During the trip, her mother’s occasionally drunken behaviour embarrasses her, but she slowly comes to understand how Della’s life has been shaped by her grief and the experiences she had to endure as a young girl.

But while they are in London, they learn about a shocking news story — the abduction of a four-year-old girl from Hampstead Heath — which is a stark reminder of their own loss and triggers another secret trauma that Della has lived with her entire life.

The literary tour, which takes in London, Bath, Oxford and Leeds (among other places), is recounted in often exacting detail, sometimes to the point of sounding a bit like a series of Wikipedia entries.

Jasmine is well-read in the classics so her narrative is filled with facts about various writers, their trials and tribulations, and the stories they are best known for and she is the one who tells us about the places visited — which include Shakespear’s birthplace, Thomas Hardy’s cottage near Dorchester, Jane Austen’s House Museum in Sussex and Keat’s House in London — and the walking tours embarked on.

Della, on the other hand, wouldn’t know a Brontë from a Dickens, but she is eager to learn and her questions suggest an inquiring mind. She begins to jot things down in her notebook so she won’t forget them.

This, in turn, makes her realise that so much of indigenous culture, which stretches back 60,000 years, has been lost or forgotten because there are limitations on oral storytelling and because Western Civilisation, which is seen as the pinnacle of art and culture, has overshadowed it. (As an aside, remember the global outpouring of grief when the medieval cathedral, Notre-Dame, in Paris caught on fire in 2019, yet last year when mining company Rio Tinto destroyed two ancient Aboriginal rock shelters dating back 46,000 years the world was pretty silent on the matter.) This prompts her to begin writing down the stories she recalls Aunty Elaine telling her, as a way to keep them from fading away.

Gentle humour

But while After Story deals with some big themes and painful issues, there’s plenty of light relief, not least in the behaviour of various individuals in the tour group. (Anyone who has travelled with a bunch of strangers will recognise the kinds of personalities represented here — the know-it-alls, the mansplainers, the ones that are late for everything all the time and so on.)

Della herself utters a great one-liner at the British Museum — a place that still houses Aboriginal remains taken from the early days of white settlement:

As we walked into the imposing white building there was a big glass bowl with money in it and a sign asking for donations. “We already gave,” I said to the guard who was standing next to it.

All this combines to give the story a depth you might not expect at first glance. When you begin to unpick this easy-to-read tale (honestly, it slips down like hot chocolate, I drank it up in a weekend), you begin to realise there is a LOT going on. Book groups would have a fun time with this one!

The book also comes with a helpful list of tourist sites mentioned in the text and a recommended reading list of classic novels that Jasmine mentions in her narrative.

For other thoughts on this novel, please see Lisa’s review at ANZLitLovers and Brona’s at This Reading Life .

This is my 21st book for #AWW2021 and my 9th book for #BIPOC2021 , which is my plan to read more books by black, Indigenous and people of colour this year.

Published by kimbofo

I am a book obsessive who has been charting my reading life online since the early 2000s. View all posts by kimbofo

14 thoughts on “‘After Story’ by Larissa Behrendt”

Thanks for the mention, Kim!

You’re welcome. I struggled to write this review… so much more I wanted to say but at 900 words this is longer than most of what I put together.

Yes, I had the same trouble: it’s so rich in allusions and themes and big-picture issues, it’s a case of what to leave out!

This sounds like a good read in its own right, but one which would bring several interesting and different perspectives to the British reader – I wants to read the account of the visit to Leeds, a city I lived in for many years!

Well, it’s not really Leeds per se, they go to the Bronte Parsonage Museum.

Like Liked by 1 person

That’ll do. But it really isn’t Leeds!

We are reading the same books. I have started on the new Rooney and have After Story cued up for listening (if I ever get to the end of Roots). I don’t read many new releases so surely this will be the last time.

LOL. I don’t normally read so many new books in a row!

“When you begin to unpick this easy-to-read tale (honestly, it slips down like hot chocolate, I drank it up in a weekend), you begin to realise there is a LOT going on.” perfect summation of this terrific story Kim! I’ve been lobbying to have this considered for our Christmas bookclub read – I’d love to unpick the various threads and themes and chat about our own literary tours!

It would make a great book club read … so much to discuss!

As part of my last job in the UK, I put together travel experiences staying at boutique pubs and I created a Jane Austen one. (Which makes me laugh, cos I’ve never read Austen!)

We did a Lyme Regis / Bath 2 day excursion last time we were in the uk. I pretended to be Louisa Musgrove jumping off the steps on the Cobb – minus the concussion thankfully 😅

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Larissa Behrendt with her third novel After Story

After Story by Larissa Behrendt review – trauma and secrets unspool on literary tour of England

Travelling the seat of colonial violence, an Indigenous mother and daughter complicate and celebrate the canon in Behrendt’s thoughtful, wry novel

“For Indigenous people, culture equals life,” Terri Janke wrote this month . Culture is not a discrete thing, to be observed at the theatre or behind museum glass. It can’t be sealed off from place, history, or family – it is these things.

This principle is at the heart of academic and filmmaker Larissa Behrendt’s significant body of work, and of her third novel, also out this month.

After Story sees Jasmine, an idealistic Indigenous lawyer, take her (somewhat bemused) mother Della on a literary tour of England. Behrendt’s lens is ostensibly focused on “British” culture, but parallel histories emerge in the novel’s seamless cuts between past and present: stories forgotten, repressed or actively erased from Jasmine and Della’s past, and their country’s.

During their visit, as a media storm builds around the disappearance of a white girl from Hampstead Heath, memories of the abduction of Jasmine’s sister Brittany resurface with a fresh sting – a sonic boom of indictment in the disparate response to each case. Decades of family secrets start to unspool.

Della, meanwhile, is unburdened by the various pretensions of her fellow tourists about the “right” way to engage with their itinerary’s colonial canon – so she does so heart-first. “All these ways of punishing people who were poor,” she marvels on their Dickens-inspired tour of the foundling museum. “Sometimes, like I know, you can love them and want to keep them and they’re just taken from you.” Her mind, like the reader’s, goes immediately to the generations of children forcibly taken from their families – that massive, knowing fracture of culture from which Australia has not recovered. More and more, she also thinks of Brittany. Della’s grief is raw, sometimes too intimate to bear. It’s delicately handled by Behrendt, who resists the easy catharsis of sentimental or confessional modes to allow her character some privacy. What is revealed of Della’s pain is tactile and quiet, “spreading out like dark honey spilt over a tablecloth”.

Jasmine, fighting to free herself of “the suffocating facts” of this inheritance of loss, has clung to literature as a beacon of self-definition. These sustaining daydreams – of Austens and Woolfs; that her other sister, Leigh-Anne, might one day be “a Vanessa to my Virginia” – are also complicated sources of alienation and shame inviting her to dismiss her own life, “so small, parochial”. But prefigured in After Story’s dual mother-daughter narration is the capacity to hold opposing truths.

Behrendt is able to both celebrate the power of Shakespeare’s or Brontë’s art and mourn the vast cost of their colonial transplantation. She suggests that a Eurocentric “culture” divides everyone – including Europeans – from culture. Literature’s “ideas and ideals” both drive and damage us, an illusory yardstick with which to beat ourselves. Yet this is also a love letter to books as technologies of change, that help us “understand where bias and prejudice hide [and] create a new way of thinking”. If the question is what stories might help us decolonise, Behrendt finds the answer in all of them, from the Magna Carta, to Mrs Dalloway, to the fragments Della salvages from memories of her mother’s cousin Elaine and writes in the notebook on her hotel bedside table.

Mostly from offstage, Aunty Elaine anchors the novel, embodying the power Aboriginal women hold as knowers and keepers of tradition. Even as the trip renews Della and Jasmine’s connection to their own stories, they realise they’ve taken her knowledge for granted. “It was slipping from me and I didn’t have a museum to keep it in,” Della says. To survive, culture must be lived, Behrendt argues – it is both verb and noun. That this epiphany only unfolds in the seat of colonial violence is the book’s major tension – presumably intentionally. It risks repeating the same hierarchical fantasy that positions England as a “homecoming”, “silvery” trees as inferior to “lush emerald green”, “culture” as coming from somewhere else – indicative of the way colonialist structures ignore or sideline ancient legacies, or steal them wholesale. (“You’ve got to be pretty cheeky to take a whole temple,” Della notes with dark humour at the British Museum.)

But mother and daughter’s reclaiming of their role as storytellers can also be seen as an act of cultural repatriation, for which Behrendt is an urgent advocate . Connecting to culture, as in Tara June Winch’s The Yield , is a condition for healing, for transcending centuries of unspoken rules about “who was expected to succeed, who was expected to fail”. As Della links a cathedral’s “magisterial” feeling of the sacred to the bush, or notes the colour of English brick “reminding you you’re on someone else’s country”, she gestures to the potential of decoupling knowledge from institution – and a more respectful, curious way of encountering the culture of another.

Behrendt’s pleasure in the Anglophone world of the tour is sincere (at times skirting perilously close to guide-book or history lecture territory). But she skewers the contemporary Australian hypocrisy that can show reverence for the “old ghosts” of a Roman burial site (or Cornish graveyard ) while failing to establish a national keeping place for its own traditional owners, or letting sites “older than the pyramids and Stonehenge” be blown up . In honouring English history’s depth, Behrendt asks, sharply, why Indigenous Australia should be expected to just “move on”.

These smouldering questions are leavened by characters who are funny, complex and real. Behrendt allows their feuds and struggles to be painful without being corrosive, reminding us everyone needs time and grace to grieve in their own way. To make peace with the moments others fail, might be to allow yourself to fail, to be imperfect. Strand by strand, she gently lays bare the discomfort and hope of a mother and daughter – strands of a story they “can tie together, that can be bound into something tangible”.

After Story by Larissa Behrendt is out now through UQP

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Book Review: Larissa Behrendt dissects complex family relationships in her entrancing new book After Story

October 7, 2021
After Story
Larissa Behrendt
University of Queensland Press

Larissa Behrendt doesn’t pull any punches in this poignant but difficult examination of family relationships, racism, and the justice system. After Story is a captivating tale about a mother and daughter trying to reconnect after years of tragedy, trauma and secrets have created rifts between them.

Bookworm Jasmine is a lawyer and the first of her family to leave the small country town of Frog Hollow to make it in the big city, desperate to distance herself from the trouble-making reputation of her family. Six months after the funeral of her father, Jasmine invites her mother Della on a literary tour of England as a chance for the two to reconnect. Della, who has never left Frog Hollow and is in the midst of a feud with Jasmine’s sister Leigh-Anne, accepts despite not knowing anything about literature. The two have barely landed in London when the fractures in their relationship start to show, and the news of a young girl going missing on Hampstead Heath begins to open old wounds as Jasmine and Della are forced to deal once more with the loss of Jasmine’s older sister Brittany twenty-five years earlier.

Behrendt breaks down each day of the tour, alternating from Della’s point of view to Jasmine’s. Della’s lack of literary knowledge and experience travelling allows the readers to see England from a new perspective. She compares what she sees and hears to her experiences back home, and as time goes on, begins to question the wisdom of the British as she compares their knowledge and achievements to that of her Indigenous ancestors.

Meanwhile, in Jasmine’s chapters, the younger woman interrogates how the experiences of various authors influenced their work. She compares this to the effect of trauma and the abuse of one of her clients back home, but is still less able to reconcile the impact of past events on her mother. While on one hand she understands, on the other she wishes things were different and struggles to balance her feelings and therefore her expectations of Della.

Behrendt’s characterisation is immaculate. Della and Jasmine’s voices are distinct, their focuses and streams of thought consistent throughout the book even as they grow, making them both easy to understand and relate to. But Behrendt is also careful to balance their views and provides excellent commentary on how our intentions may be perceived differently by those around us. Frequently Della says things that are misinterpreted by her daughter and the rest of the group resulting in her often remaining silent rather than trying to explain herself or her point of view. Likewise, both characters make decisions that they feel are best for each other when in fact it is not at all what the other wants.

The story is held together by a supporting cast of strong, intelligent and insightful women, none of whom are actually present on the tour. Throughout their travels, Jasmine and Della frequently compare themselves to and fall back on the knowledge of their relatives Aunty Elaine, Aunt Kiki, Mum Nancy and Leigh-Anne. In addition, Behrendt makes good use of the other tour participants who range in age and world-views and who are seemingly at odds with one another the whole time. This constant clash of ideas and judgements feels true of real life, and the first-person narration is oddly comforting in the sense that both struggle to sort through the noise and find their own identity amongst it all.

There are too many wonderful things to say about this book. The use of the literary tour as the grounding device for Jasmine and Della’s respective journey’s is perfect for booklovers. The story is heartfelt, respectful and nuanced, and the characters are relatable. This might very well be my favourite book of 2021. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)

Larissa Behrendt’s After Story is out now, available through UQP . Grab yourself a copy from Booktopia HERE .

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Book review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt

In our information-saturated digital age, it is all too easy to think that everything that needs to be said, has been said.

But After Story by Larissa Behrendt, makes it abundantly and movingly clear that a great deal remains swept under metaphorical carpets or held close to the chest and that finding the stories that often lie beneath what is known and said is a herculean task in itself, and if they are finally articulated, have the power to reshape us in ways we might never have envisaged.

Indigenous lawyer Jasmine discovers this when she decides to take her mother Della, who lives a number of hours away from her daughter’s new life in the hustle and bustle of Sydney, on a trip to England to tour sites associated with her literary idols such as Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and the Brontë sisters.

She’s not entirely sure it’s a good idea since the two have never been as close as Jasmine would like – she is the first to have their country town for further education and a flash city career, a move which has causes ructions with her mother, aunt Kiki and sister Leigh-Anne, though for entirely different reasons – but she wants to see if they can be close and figures the trip is the best way to make this happen.

Or at least she hopes it is; there are no guarantees in a family that has never said that it really means, except when it is defending itself against outsiders, and which is more adept at passive-aggressive maneuvering that it is about unburdening secrets and let the truth set itself free.

“My parents living apart but so close might seem like a strange arrangement to anyone who didn’t live in the Frog Hollow part of our town. Here, especially among the poor families like ours who never went anywhere, it was all one big interconnected web of kinship, with every degree of separation leading back to where it started with just two or three steps.” (P. 12)

But to be fair, the family has had a great deal with which to deal from the disappearance of Della’s eldest child Brittany 25 years earlier, which triggered immeasurable, lasting grief for everyone in the family (this grief is made raw all over again for Della when a young girl disappears on Hampstead Heath while she and Jasmine are in the UK), to the break up of Della’s relationship with her partner Jimmy (though they remained close) and to the friction resulting from having by necessity having to have a foot in two cultural camps, the white and Indigenous with the former doing its best to eradicate and oppress the former.

It’s a considerable burden but again not one that the family has ever really explored or spoken about, and as After Story begins, it is clear that Della and Jasmine are going to have to wade through a great deal of unsaid things to find some sort of resolution, assuming it is there to be had.

With a story told in alternating chapters, with Della and Jasmine explaining the day’s tour events from their perspective, After Story is exquisitely well told, possessed of a touchingly insightful narrative that seeks to find answers asked and not answered in one country in a wholly different country one the other side of the world which is as far from the cultural touchstones as it is possible to get.

It is a clever way in which to explore what ails Jasmine and Della’s relationship, and indeed the entire family, because it understands implicitly that when we are not sitting cheek by jowl with our day-to-day problems that we need to gain unprecedented insight into a range of issues that might otherwise remain buried under the ceaseless pressure of the everyday.

While there is a great deal of pain and sadness in After Story , which expertly weaves in backstory and exposition in a way that never feels clunky or forced, there is also slowly simmering hope and the promise of nascent renewal as Della, who rediscovers the wisdom and storytelling power of her culture and that she needs to say what is on her mind, especially when it comes to how much she loves her family, and Jasmine, who begins to see that perhaps she needs to find a way to knit her past and present together if she is ever to be truly happy and connected to her family, finally pull back the layers of their little-explored family.

Woven into this remarkably told story of the power of the unsaid to transform lives utterly when it finally sees the light of day, is a love letter to literature as we delve into the lives of Woolf, Austen and the Brontë sisters, whose voices have often been allowed to pale in comparison with their more heavily-promoted male contemporaries such as as D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.

It is a fascinating literary and feminist corollary to the way in which Della and Jasmine have their culture treated as second best by a colonising power that automatically assumed cultural superiority, when evidence increasingly shows that was far from the case – this even happened within their own family thanks to Della’s bigoted white father – which has in turn affected the way in which they have related to each other.

“Nothing prepares you for death and that’s a fact. People say, ‘time will heal’ but I [Della] can tell you the longer it gets, the worse it gets. At first there’s numbness. Police investigations, coronial inquests, people coming through the house. But when they go and the house is empty, well, that’s almost the worst time. That’s when it’s just you and your thoughts and nothing else.” (P. 134)

There is a great deal under exploration in After Story but this lightly and beautifully told story never feels burdened by the great weight of the issues at its core.

It doesn’t make light of them, of course, but nor does it sink beneath the weight of them with Behrendt weaving the heaviness of loss, grief, fallen dreams and misplaced hope into a story which dares to quietly and yet powerfully argue that even in the face of things long buried and the virulently corrosive power they possess, that it is possible to find healing and restoration and to have the past finally be fully and meaningfully put to bed.

It’s not forgotten, it can’t be not with its prevalent presence and enduring power, but it can be brought to heel, which we see happen in ways authentically hard fought for and yet tenderly as Della and Jasmine slowly and falteringly come to understand more of the other’s life and how what they assumed to be true may not be the full story.

Behrendt tells her wonderfully rich and substantial story with such nuanced hopefulness, good humour and insightful humanity that you will find yourself wholly wrapped up into After Story which is deceptively light and gentle and yet which possesses an impressive ability to immerse you in its truth and to help you to see what may not be able to be said close to home can find expression far away, setting you and those you love unexpectedly free in the process.

Book review: where am i now by mara wilson, lost in a sea of beautiful words: my 25 favourite books of 2022, book review: sirius by jonathan crown.

bookish nooks

Nov 11, 2022

Book Review: After Story, by Larissa Behrendt

First Nations lawyer, Jasmine, takes her mum, Della, on a literary tour of England. Bound together only by the labels of family, Jasmine resents her mother and their shared connection but hopes that the trip will help them heal from the trauma of their shared past.

As each story of money, power and colonisation is presented within the walls and structures of Western literary history, mother and daughter learn to reconsider the powerful influence and ageless significance of their own First Nations culture.

I was initially drawn to this story by the literary references: two Australians travelling the English countryside to find the locales of the greatest writers on my shelf? I was hooked.

But I stayed for the message. Though I have no First Nations ancestry myself, I felt so much pride in my country's origins while I was reading this. It's not my story to tell; it's the story of the communities whose stories mark the land and create meaning.

Maddy holds After Story by Larissa Behrendt, with the Melbourne skyline in the background. Image: Madeleine Corbel, 2022.

A warped history

A major message Larissa Behrendt conveyed in After Story ( UQP ) was the warping of history, and how our knowledge is shaped by the telling of it. A Western translation of the events from the past entangles our own perceptions of culture and place, not to mention what we deem as important to learn about in the first place.

We tend to revel in our European buildings, old cathedrals, plaster walls and classical arches – and yet we don't seem to give a damn about the spiritual life of a tree that's hundreds of years older than these structures. We make it compulsory to learn the history of settlement without considering the impact of genocide on a population older than we can fathom. We worship the quills of Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen (as we should, don't get me wrong), but fail to afford the same literary and cultural space to stories that have been told by women in the Australian bush for thousands of years.

This reminded me of some of the arguments made in Bri Lee 's book, Who Gets To Be Smart . Though this is directed at educational funding and how we define intelligence, there is a lot of questioning and soul-searching about institutional gatekeeping. Who misses out on an education in Australia, and who should we be listening to? Which stories do we tell, and why?

This story made me question the way I have learned about literary history, and who decides how I learn that history. The Australian curriculum is changing, and we're learning to consider the way that Australia has been moulded by generations of racism and selfishness. But through the eyes of Jasmine and Della, I'm beginning to see how far we have yet to travel.

Throughout their tour of England, the characters come across people who aren't willing to listen. They spout their own lineage, writings, opinions and accolades for their own ends without listening to the wisdom of the people in their immediate circle.

We view knowledge as something that is earned through a piece of framed paper resting on an office wall. Again, don't get me wrong, I'm working pretty hard for that piece of paper myself, so I'm in no position to rant about the downsides of institutional learning. But what is often forgotten is that knowledge exists in all forms and wisdom can be found in experience.

Jasmine's mother, Della, is a source of wisdom and strength. Though she never forces her culture on others and seems engrossed in the information presented to her on the literary tour, she is undoubtedly complicated and knowledgeable herself. Her past experiences, frustrations and traumas combine with cultural pride and individualism to create a brilliant kaleidoscope. I was in awe of her.

The wisdom of family, the strength in shared culture, the beauty of travel and the power in learning through listening forms the backbone of this book.

In this Ted Talk, Tai Simpson discusses the wisdom woven inherently into Indigenous First Nation stories. Video : TED, 2021.

A path forward

The writing captivated me totally and the literary tour scenery had me wishing to explore the same places. I want to learn more about the culture of the earth beneath my feet. There's so much to discover and this book opened my eyes (and my ears) to the ways in which we're taught to think about history – and how those should change.

What’s the last story that made you think deeply?

As always, thanks for reading with me,

Book review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt

March 18, 2024
Fleur Morrison
Book Reviews

Larissa Behrendt’s After Story included some of my favourite bookish elements – travel, relationships and culture.

After Story centres on an Indigenous mother and daughter who take a literary tour of England.

Here, two cultures sit uncomfortably side-by-side as the daughter, Jasmine, and her mother, Della, learn about the English canon while grappling with how their own culture is often dismissed.

I really enjoyed the thoughtfulness with which Behrendt addressed these two cultures, which were both treated with honesty and respect. The beauty of each culture took centrestage as Jasmine admired the rich and impressive culture of the UK, while her mother highlighted the wisdom and wealth of Australian Indigenous culture.

In the very best way, this novel was a book of reconciliation and connection that was in no way heavy handed or condescending.

Much of the novel is also about the mother-daughter relationship, which is also treated with great gentleness, while also recognising the complexities of the relationship between two generations. The two have quite a prickly relationship, but also a tenderness and concern about each other, despite a long-held inability to communicate their thoughts and feelings.

Another element I loved was the tour of England and the various literary facts interwoven through the story.

I highly recommend this beautiful novel to anyone interested in reading about family, literature and culture.

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After Story by Larissa Behrendt

Reviewed by Leanne Hall

Burnt out after a disturbing homicide case, lawyer Jasmine takes a leap of faith and invites her mother Della to join her on a literary tour of England. Della has never travelled far beyond Frog Hollow, the tight-knit community where she raised her three daughters, and the place where her eldest daughter Brittany disappeared as a child. Jasmine and Della join a tour group in London and wend their way through a series of locations related to literary greats: the factory where Dickens worked as a child, the cottage at Chawton where Austen wrote Emma and Persuasion , the Oxford college where Lewis Carroll spent most of his career.

Told from mother-daughter alternating perspectives, After Story is a powerful meditation on family, culture, storytelling and the lingering effects of trauma and grief. Jasmine, an avid reader from childhood, has pursued an academic and professional life in the city that has left her feeling distanced from her mum and remaining sister. Della is still reeling from the recent death of Jimmy, her ex-partner and the father of her daughters. Both women hope the tour will bring them closer together, but at first it only widens the space between them.

Travel brings home into relief. Learning about the troubled lives of British writers underscores their own complicated relationships. Visiting historical sites causes both Jasmine and Della to muse on the depth and extent of Aboriginal living culture and the injustices and crimes of Australian history. Their late Aunty Elaine is keenly missed; her stories, wisdom and teachings surface, again and again. The humorously factional tour group reminds Jasmine of the difficulties of being a young Aboriginal woman in White- and male-dominated spaces. Curious first-time traveller Della has mind-expanding experiences, but when a local missing girl dominates the news, difficult memories resurface and she begins to lean on her long-time crutch, alcohol.

This is an extraordinary novel by award-winning author, filmmaker and law professor Larissa Behrendt, a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman. After Story is sprawling, cerebral and compassionate. It feeds the brain, offers much-needed vicarious travel and leaves the reader with hope that fraught relationships can be mended.

Leanne Hall is from Readings online.

After Story

Larissa Behrendt

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Books, reading and more … with an australian focus … written on ngunnawal country, larissa behrendt, after story (#bookreview).

Larissa Behrendt’s latest novel After story has been on my wishlist since it came out last year, so I was thrilled when my reading group chose it as our 2022 NAIDOC-Week read. What self-respecting reader, after all, doesn’t like a literary tour?

After story , for those who haven’t caught up with it yet, is framed around a ten-day literary tour of England that is undertaken by a First Nations Australian mother and daughter, Della and Jasmine, whose relationship is fraught. Through this plot device, Behrendt marries her two storytelling loves – English literature and Indigenous Australian storytelling. In doing so, she draws comparisons between them, and explores ways in which both can reflect on and enhance our lives. She also shows how travel can be an engine of change for people.

Although it contains some very dark matter concerning grief and abuse, After story is a gentle and generous read – for two reasons. First, there’s the characters. Della and Jasmine, are strong, thoughtful and, importantly, real. Both have made mistakes in managing the challenges in their lives, but both genuinely want to have better relationships with those they love. Della, the less educated and more naive of the two, is particularly engaging for her honesty and lack of pretension, for her open-mindedness, and for the rawness of her pain. The other reason is the novel’s tone. It is clear and passionate about the wrongs done to Australia’s First Nations peoples but it is not angry. This is not to say that anger doesn’t have its place – it certainly does – but it’s not the only approach to telling the story of dispossession and dislocation.

What is particularly striking about this book is its structure and voice. After a prologue in Della’s voice telling of the disappearance twenty-five years ago of her 7-year-old daughter Brittany, the novel is structured by the tour, with each day being told, in first person, by Della and then Jasmine, until Day 8, when Della’s built-up grief overcomes her. After that, the order changes and Jasmine goes first. This change marks a turning point in their relationship – albeit not an immediate, epiphanic one. It also jolts the narrative out of a pattern that had risked becoming a little too rigorous. Like a coda, it makes the reader sit up and wonder what will happen next?

What does happen, however, as I’ve already implied, is not particularly dramatic. Rather, this book emulates something Virginia Woolf said, as Jasmine shares:

The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.

But, back to the structure. After story is one of those books in which the structure mirrors or supports its intention – and Jasmine, again, explains it well. Talking about Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’ response to it in Wide Sargasso Sea , she says, “it’s compelling, the uncovering of the other side of the story”. “Uncovering the other side of the story” is the nub of this novel – personally, in terms of Della, Jasmine, and their relationship with each other and the rest of their family, and politically, in terms of the conflicting views and experiences of the colonisers and colonised. What Behrendt aims for in this novel, I believe, is to bring people together through improved mutual understanding.

Lest this sound too earnest, though, let me reiterate my earlier comment that this novel has a light touch. To balance the heavy material, which includes a number of losses including those related to abandoned and lost children, Behrendt creates a cast of typical tour participants. There’s the white male know-it-all professor and his seemingly mouse-like wife; the feminist young lesbian couple willing to take him on at every turn; the recently retired, educated middle-class couple; the bossy woman and her down-trodden sister; Della and Jasmine; and of course Lionel, the long-suffering tour guide, and bus-driver Brett. Behrendt handles these almost-stereotypical characters well, so that, by the end, even the arrogant Professor Finn is softened for us.

There is much humour in the telling, such as this, for example, from Della as she enters the British Museum, which, she has just discovered, still holds Aboriginal remains:

As we walked into the imposing white building there was a big glass bowl with money in it and a sign asking for donations. “We already gave,” I said to the guard who was standing next to it.

Comments and asides like this are used throughout the novel to draw our attention to the truths we may not otherwise see. Truth, in fact, is a recurring idea in the novel – the withholding and the sharing. Della, reflecting on Thomas Hardy’s first wife being written out of history, remembers stories of erasure told by her community’s elder Aunty Elaine, and thinks “Sometimes the truth matters and you shouldn’t try to hide the facts”. A little later, Jasmine is also reminded of Aunty Elaine’s wisdom:

Aunty Elaine would remind me that there is more than one way to tell a story; there can sometimes be more than one truth. ‘The silences are as important as the words,’ she’d often say. There is what’s not in the archive, not in the history books – those things that have been excluded hidden overlooked.

Throughout the novel, Aunty Elaine’s stories and wisdom, shared through the memories of Della and Jasmine, provide the First Nations’ foil to the literary tour, sometimes enhancing, sometimes counteracting the messages and lessons of English literature.

I did, however, have one issue with the novel, one shared by a few in my reading group. This concerned its occasional didactic tone. Frequently, for example, the characters tell us what they’d learnt at various sites, such as about Jane Austen’s life or Virginia Woolf’s death. While we could see the point, the way the information was imparted did feel teachy at times. Fortunately, this tone did not extend to the novel’s underpinning ideas which are conveyed through the narrative rather than “told”.

In a Sydney Writers’ Festival panel , Behrendt said something that appeals to me, which is that the goal of being a great writer is to say something important. In After story , she has written an engaging, accessible novel, that also says important things – some subtle, some more overt, but all stemming, ultimately, from the traumas First Nations people have suffered, and continue to suffer, at the hands of the settlers.

Jasmine comes to a significant realisation near the end:

Suddenly I found the museum stuffy. When Aunty Elaine would talk about it, our culture felt alive – the sewing of possum cloaks … the gift of telling stories. They were living and breathing, not relics of the past, frozen in time. Looking at the artefacts surrounding me, I couldn’t help but feel I missed an opportunity with Aunty Elaine to capture her knowledge.

She had, she continues, “rightly valued education” but she had also “taken Aunty Elaine and her knowledge for granted”.

This is the call Behrendt makes in her novel. She wants both cultures given equal respect for what they can offer us. She knows the value of stories in bringing people together. Wouldn’t it be great if her story here achieved just that?

Larissa Behrendt is a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman

This book has been reviewed by several bloggers including Lisa , Brona and Kimbofo .

Larissa Behrendt After story St Lucia: UQP, 2021 307pp. ISBN: 9780702263316

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20 thoughts on “ Larissa Behrendt, After story (#BookReview) ”

A terrific book, and great for a book group to unpack. My most memorable character was Della, especially when she arced up against Jasmine telling her what to do. Very authentic!

Thanks Lisa. Yes, everyone in the reading group loved Della the most. We did have a great discussion ranging over a lot of issues.

I am reading Mark Mckenna’s 2002 (and updated 2014) Looking for Blackfellas’ Point. Re his uncovering of the south coast Yuin story after he had purchased land at Towamba – inland from Twofold Bay. Mark wrote Return to Uluru – the uncovering of the murderer of the Arrernte man Yokununna in the early 1930s at Uluru. The 2002 book deals with what happened in that region snd vigorously interrogates the benign and untruthful stories – the myths – of invader “settlement” etc. I haven’t read After Story – but there are themes in Mark McKenna’s book which LB seems to be touching on according to your review. Thanks.

Thanks Jim. Yes, I know Mark McKenna having read Return to Uluru, but haven’t read Blackfellas’ Point. I think Behrendt synthesises a lot of ideas and thoughts in After story. I’m sure you’d enjoy it.

Interrogates

Got it!! Will fix.

This group travelling around and the loss and the first-nation’s perspective all remind me of The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour, a relatively newer book out of Canada by Dawn Dumont. As you described what happened in the novel I kept recalling moments from Dumont’s book. Interesting that they both chose a tour of some sort to move the characters around and learn things.

Oh that sounds really interesting Melanie. Love the title.

This has been on my radar for a while, Sue. It’s going to be my birthday gift to myself in the strength of your review.

Great Angela. You’re like I was. It’s a book with so many ideas and neat connections. I had a whole list but, you know, you can’t say it all in a post. I think this is why the other bloggers’ reviews all vary quite a bit. Of course there’s a core because the main idea comes through but there’s so much in it. My group had a great discussion and it speared off into some political discussion too which I think would please Behrendt.

I imagine that including facts in a novel is difficult to master without that ‘teachy’ impression. How to do both is well beyond moi !!

Yes, that’s what we discussed in reading group M-R. She gave it a red hot shot … part of it I think was that there was very little new for some of us. We know the biographies of those icons, and we also know Bruce Pascoe’s etc history of First Nations agriculture and aquaculture practices.

What a unique and poignant story! Love this quote: “The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.” Talking about First Nations, did you know that The Pope was in Canada this past weekend, my province Alberta and Quebec to be specific, for the purpose of delivering his apology to the First Nations people for the tragic operation of residential schools by the Catholic Church in the past.

Thanks Arti. I love that you like that quote too. It’s so good … Virginia Woolf was so good!

Yes, we had heard that on the news. Every step of recognition helps I think.

Yes, that’s a VW quote and not from the book. But still poignant. BTW, a lot of children were labelled ‘missing’ at residential schools here in Canada, but what was horrific is now they’re digging up thousands of human remains on the sites of these residential schools. That’s the major factor prodding the Pope to come to apologize. I think that’s quite something for him to do this.

I’m confused. What do you mean “not from the book”.

We have been hearing snippets of this Canadian history. I agree that it is quite something.

Sorry, the confusion is mine… Of course it’s a quote from the book, emulating VW. Pardon my senior moment. 🙂

Sorry, didn’t mean to show senior moments up – I just worried I’d got something wrong!!

Thanks for the link, Sue. I enjoyed this novel a lot but like your book group criticisms I did find the info on the literary sites / literary figures a bit like Wikipedia entries that had been shoehorned in (and said this in my review), but on the whole this was a wonderful book.

Thanks kimbofo How did I miss that in your review – I must read it again! I was rushing to finish my review that did just skim read those I was linking to. I’m glad, though, that I’m not the only one. As you say though it’s still a great read.

An infinite void

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After Story by Larissa Behrendt

University of Queensland Press, $32.99 pb, 306 pp

I n the latter half of this novel, one of its protagonists is viewing a collection of butterflies at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This forms part of Jasmine’s holiday with her mother, Della, a tour of famous literary and other notable cultural sites in the United Kingdom. By this stage they have visited Stratford-upon-Avon, Brontë country in Haworth, and Jane Austen’s Bath and Southampton, and have been duly impressed or, in Della’s case, underwhelmed. But now Jasmine can only feel sadness: ‘We take the life of a living thing, hold it to display, because we feel entitled to the knowledge, entitled to the owning, the possessing.’

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Larissa Behrendt

Debra Adelaide

University of Queensland Press
Indigenous Writing
Australian Fiction

Debra Adelaide has published eighteen books, including novels, short fiction, and essays, the most recent of which is The Innocent Reader (2019). Until 2020 she was an associate professor in the creative writing program at the University of Technology Sydney.

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After Story by Larissa Behrendt

When a mother and daughter take the overseas trip of a lifetime, they discover that the past is never quite behind them.

When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother, Della, on a tour of England’s most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past.

Twenty-five years earlier the disappearance of Jasmine’s older sister devastated their tight-knit community. This tragedy returns to haunt Jasmine and Della when another child mysteriously goes missing on Hampstead Heath. As Jasmine immerses herself in the world of her literary idols – including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf – Della is inspired to rediscover the wisdom of her own culture and storytelling. But sometimes the stories that are not told can become too great to bear.

Ambitious and engrossing, After Story celebrates the extraordinary power of words and the quiet spaces between. We can be ready to listen, but are we ready to hear?

Winner, 2022 Voss Literary Prize

Shortlisted, 2022 The Age Book of the Year Award

Shortlisted, 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards – Indigenous Writers’ Prize

Shortlisted, 2021 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards – Fiction

Shortlisted, The ABA Booksellers’ Choice Awards 2022 – Nielsen Adult Fiction Book of the Year

Longlisted, 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award

Longlisted, 2022 Indie Book Awards – Fiction

Longlisted, 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards – General Fiction Book of the Year

Longlisted, 2023 Dublin Literary Award

‘ This book is a masterclass of when European literature meets the power of First Nations oral storytelling ... Larissa cements herself as one of our greatest storytellers. ’ Blackfulla Bookclub

‘ After Story is a powerful meditation on family, culture, storytelling and the lingering effects of trauma and grief. This is an extraordinary novel … After Story is sprawling, cerebral and compassionate. It feeds the brain, offers much-needed vicarious travel and leaves the reader with hope that fraught relationships can be mended. ’ Readings

‘ This beautifully fashioned novel stands testament to the proposition that good fiction can cut to the chase of complex social problems in ways that might leave an entire library of self-help non-fiction found wanting in its wake. ’ The Canberra Times

‘ Della and Jasmine are both battling through their own trauma - their personal loss as well as the stole land and lives which weigh on them - from different bases. In a novel where their stories converge so inevitably, and sweep so many other stories in their wake, Behrendt shows she is a writer of considerable, and increasing, power. ’ Meg Keneally, The Australian

‘ After Story delves into darkness to show that truth-telling can set us free ... it's a pleasure to read and a wonderful opportunity to rethink what we have to offer the world around us. ’ The Saturday Paper

‘ We might think we know what to expect from this whirlwind week of bookish sightseeing: family secrets, writerly anecdotes and a splash of tour-bus drama. These comfort-reading delights are certainly present in After Story but they're layered over something anguished, characterful and quietly consequential ... with its glimmering seam of humour, Behrendt's novel offers a much-needed reminder that novels don't have to be relentlessly somber to be serious. ’ The Sydney Morning Herald

‘ Behrendt is able to both celebrate the power of Shakespeare’s or Brontë’s art and mourn the vast cost of their colonial transplantation. She suggests that a Eurocentric “culture” divides everyone – including Europeans – from culture. Literature’s “ideas and ideals” both drive and damage us, an illusory yardstick with which to beat ourselves. ’ The Guardian

‘ While persisting intergenerational trauma is a thread that runs through the novel, After Story is also a marvellous evocation of travel that takes the form of literary pilgrimage. ’ ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

‘ Larissa's writing is rich and captivating ... After Story shows how the past, family ties and grief travel with Della and Jasmine to the other side of the world, and the power and importance of great stories in their lives. ’ Lydia Tasker, Sydney Writers' Festival

‘ A gem you can't put down. Reaching the last chapter, I got literary anxiety akin to binging a rare find on Netflix. Goodbye so soon? ’ Ascension Mag

‘ After Story is a captivating tale. ... Behrendt's characterisation is immaculate. There are too many wonderful things to say about this book ... The story is heartfelt, respectful and nuanced, and the characters are relatable. This might very well be my favourite book for 2021. I can't recommend it highly enough. ’ The AU Review

‘ A fantastic novel by Larissa Behrendt ... A really sophisticated piece of writing ... I really enjoyed After Story ... It's very very gripping, I couldn't put it down. ’ Annabel Crabb, Chat 10 Looks 3 Podcast

‘ Not one to be missed. ’ Urban List

‘ The author has also cleverly interwoven into the story layers, British history and literature, as well as giving an honest account of white Australia’s racist past and present ... a truly special book. ’ ReadPlus

‘ A richly researched tapestry of literature, history and science ... lyrical and gently dazzling. ’ Law Society Journal

‘ A gorgeous, clever novel of mother/daughter love and loss, ambitious in conception and masterful in execution. ’ Clare Wright for The Sydney Morning Herald

‘ A First Nations mother/daughter rite of passage, involving love, literature, and redemption that is simply a joy to read. ’ Ian McFarlane, The Canberra Times

‘ This mother and daughter travel tale is a gem that shines with truth and respect for story... The voice is very Aussie, frank, almost disingenuous, as if Della was having a D and M with her sister. She’s not afraid to speak her mind and neither should those who work in the industry. ’ CBD News

‘ In turns heart-breaking, thought-provoking, enlightening and beautifully written, it’s an absolute must-read. ’ MamaMia

Q&A with Australian Book Review

Larissa Behrendt on ABC Radio National The Book Show

Interview with Backstory on 3RRR Melbourne

At Home with the Garret Podcast

Q&A with The Wheeler Centre

Q&A with Her Canberra

Larissa Behrendt for Good Weekend's Dicey Topics

Interview with Julian Morrow for Sunday Extra: The Year that Made Me

The Book Pod with Corrie Perkin

On SBS Voices The New Writers Room podcast

Jackie Huggins & Chelsea Watego

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Kate Grenville

‘ A moving story of going far away to find home again – a beautiful, hopeful book. ’

Rachel Griffiths

‘ A literary tour that speaks to the imagination, connecting the canon of English literature to the lives of a mother and daughter whose own stories have been untold, Larissa weaves an exquisite tapestry that talks to our common humanity that lives within the stories we collect, treasure and share. ’

‘ After Story is a work of great originality. It is a tale of discovery and understanding, envisioned through the shared experiences of Della and Jasmine on a journey to the "old country", a place that is not theirs. Through Della and Jasmine we come to understand the depths of familial love, with poignancy, humour and true storytelling. ’

‘ An extraordinary novel ... sprawling, cerebral and compassionate. ’

Shankari Chandran

‘ After Story has everything I want in a book: a lawyer who loves literature; the norms, falsehoods and shame created by our colonised histories (including the literature of the coloniser); and the messy, messy love that ties families together. It's painful, warm and utterly beautiful. ’

Clare Wright

‘ A gorgeous, clever novel of mother/daughter love and loss, ambitious in conception and masterful in execution. ’

Helen Garner

‘ I loved it. ’

‘ Tell everyone you know how great After Story is. ’

Hayley Scrivenor

‘ There are insightful meditations on justice, race, shame and love, and it's a touching story about mothers and daughters that features a literary tour of England. You simply can't go wrong. ’

Nicole Abadee

‘ Absolutely beautiful. ’

Larissa Behrendt presents After Story for NSW Public Libraries

Larissa Behrendt discusses After Story with ABC News Breakfast

Larissa Behrendt

Larissa is the author of three novels: Home , which won the 2002 David Unaipon Award and the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book; Legacy , which won the 2010 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; and After Story , shortlisted for the Indigenous Writers' Prize at the 2022 NSW Premier's Literary Award, General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2022 ABIAs and Nielsen Adult Fiction Book of the Year at the 2022 ABA Booksellers' Choice Awards, and longlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award. She has published numerous books on Indigenous legal issues; her most recent non-fiction book is Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling. She was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year award and 2011 NSW Australian of the Year. Larissa wrote and directed the feature films, After the Apology and Innocence Betrayed and has written and produced several short films. In 2018 she won the Australian Directors’ Guild Award for Best Direction in a Documentary Feature and in 2020 the AACTA for Best Direction in Nonfiction Television. She is the host of Speaking Out on ABC radio and is Distinguished Professor at the Jumbunna Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.

More by Larissa Behrendt

Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling, First Nations Classics (with an introduction by Fiona Foley)

Pack of eight First Nations Classics: Series two

Finding Eliza: Power and colonial storytelling

After Story by Larissa Behrendt longlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award

UQP Authors at 2024 BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival

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Claire's Reads and Reviews

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AudioBook Review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt

This novel has been on my TBR list since it was released in 2021, when one of the blog posts I participate in chose it as the starting book for September I thought it was time I read it. I was thrilled to find it on audiobook and the two narrators Tamala Shelton and Shari Sebbons did such a wonderful job bringing Jasmine and Della to life for me.

This story of family, past traumas, connection and learning, was a gentle story that pulled me in and allowed me to get to know these ladies and Auntie Elaine and appreciate some of the traumas and experiences of Aboriginal people and learn some of their stories.

The story is told in dual points of view but during the same time period, so we get Della’s experience of each day and then her daughters which I found really interesting, seeing how each woman saw and felt about what happened during the day.

Jasmine invited her mother Della on a 10 day literary tour in the UK in the hope of getting to know her better and forming a connection that was lost when she left for the city.

I connected more with Della throughout this story, as she experiences and learns about things she’s never heard of or come across before and these bring back memories and stories told to her by Auntie Elaine from their Indigenous culture. I loved how she engaged with and showed interest in the things she came across, how she asked questions which also allowed the people she met to feel heard and how the experiences gave her new passions for her future and understandings of her past. I also enjoyed hearing her thoughts about everything she learnt, the people she met and the past.

Della has had a lot of trauma in her past and alcohol has been her way of coping for many years which is a point of contention between her and Jasmine. During the holiday Della buys a notebook and takes notes of things she finds interesting, goals she wants to achieve, like making a garden when she returns to her home in Australia and she also starts recording stories told by Auntie Elaine and memories that come up that she has kept hidden form Jasmine.

Jasmine has also suffered the trauma of losing her sister and the effect that had on her mum and dad and sisters. She’s always wanted to escape the community she grew up in and tried to distance herself from her sister and parents and because of this her relationship with her mum has suffered. At the start of the tour I felt she was ashamed of her mum which I found sad and she wondered why she’d invited her to come. I liked seeing how Jasmine’s opinion of her changes near the end of the tour and how she slowly forms a closer bond with Della.

This was a gentle story, I don’t know how else to describe it, but it covered some serious topics and the consequences of those traumas, decisions made, trauma and generational trauma. I really enjoyed this tale and didn’t want to stop listening each time I turned it on, I was hopeful for both Jasmine and Della’s future relationship and I hope Della gets her garden

. I don’t know that I’ve managed to do this story justice with my thoughts on it but I recommend you pick it up and travel this path with Della and Jasmine.

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About the book

When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England’s most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past.

Ambitious and engrossing, After Story celebrates the extraordinary power of words and the quiet spaces between. We can be ready to listen, but are we ready to hear?

Duration: 8 hours 20 minutes.

Published by Claire Louisa

I am an avid reader who will read just about anywhere I can. I have a TBR pile I doubt I will ever get through. I read a large variety of genres and love learning about other peoples cultures and experiences through fiction. I love reading and reviewing books & supporting #australianwomenwriters, #aussieauthors & #indieauthors #mmromancereader and LGBTQ+ supporter 🏳️‍🌈. I am an artist, an Art Therapist at Healing heART Therapy & a disability support worker. This year I am studying my Diploma in mental health. View all posts by Claire Louisa

6 thoughts on “ AudioBook Review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt ”

I agree, a terrific book. As you say, it is a gentle book: it shows First Nations’ painful experiences without bitterness.

Like Liked by 1 person

Yes, there was no bitterness, it was so well done. I’m glad you understood what I was saying.

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After Story by Larissa Behrendt - Book Review

Updated: Jun 4, 2022

Told over the course of a 10-day literary tour of England, After Story centres on the difficult relationship between a First Nations mother and daughter. After scoring a free ticket, ambitious lawyer, Jasmine, invites her easy-going mother to join her on the tour, hoping the time together will bring them closer.

With shades of Edina and Saffy, the two share cramped hotel accommodation, where there is little room to hide from their differences. Neat freak Jasmine is often frustrated by her mother’s untidy and disorganised ways and mum Della wants to be left in peace by her “worry wort” daughter.

But behind the everyday trials of this odd couple mother and daughter lie deeper issues. News reports of a child gone missing on Hampstead Heath stir up memories of Brittany, the sister and daughter who went missing and never returned. As the tour progresses, the news reports of the missing child become increasingly concerning and the relationship between Jasmine and Della is strained. Lurching between avoidance and confrontation, memories and secrets plague both women and the anguish of losing Brittany comes to the surface.

After Story is a very complex one, with so many issues to explore, such as the racism suffered by First Nations people, the importance of connection and family and the lingering effects of abuse. But the strongest theme for me was of trying to live a life in the aftermath of unimaginable loss. In this story, Della and Jasmine confront some difficult truths and long-held secrets are revealed. This brings about a new understanding between them and they go on to build a better relationship for themselves, their family and their community. While this is a tragic story in many ways, it shows how it is possible to find new connections and happiness, even after those you cherish are gone.

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How to write a book review in 3 steps.

If the idea of reading for free — or even getting paid to read — sounds like a dream come true, remember that it isn’t a pipe dream. There are many places aspiring book reviewers can read books for free, such as Reedsy Discovery — a new platform for reviewing indie books. Of course, if you’re giving serious thought to becoming a book reviewer, your first step should be learning how to write a book review. To that end, this post covers all the basics of literary criticism. Let’s get started!

The three main steps of writing a book review are simple:

Provide a summary: What is story about? Who are the main characters and what is the main conflict?
Present your evaluation: What did you think of the book? What elements worked well, and which ones didn’t?
Give your recommendation: Would you recommend this book to others? If so, what kinds of readers will enjoy it?

You can also download our free book review templates and use it as a guide! Otherwise, let’s take a closer look at each element.

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How to write a review of a book

Step 1. provide a summary.

Have you ever watched a movie only to realize that all the good bits were already in the trailer? Well, you don’t want the review to do that. What you do want the summary to do is reveal the genre, theme, main conflict, and main characters in the story — without giving away spoilers or revealing how the story ends.

A good rule of thumb is not to mention anything that happens beyond the midpoint. Set the stage and give readers a sense of the book without explaining how the central issue is resolved.

Emily W. Thompson's review of The Crossing :

In [Michael] Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl. Read more...

Here are a few more reviews with well-written summaries for you to check out. The summary tend to be the longest part of the book review, so we won’t turn this post into a novel itself by pasting them all here: Le Cirque Navire reviewed by Anna Brill, The Heart of Stone reviewed by Kevin R. Dickinson, Fitting Out: The Friendship Experiment reviewed by Lianna Albrizio.

Non-fiction summary tip: The primary goal of a non-fiction summary is to provide context: what problems or issues has the book spotted, and how does it go about addressing them? Be sure to mention the authors of the title and what experience or expertise they bring to the title. Check Stefan Kløvning’s review of Creativity Cycling for an example of a summary that establishes the framework of the book within the context of its field.

Step 2. Present your evaluation

While you should absolutely weave your own personal take of a book into the review, your evaluation shouldn’t only be based on your subjective opinion. Along with presenting how you reacted to the story and how it affected you, you should also try to objectively critique the stronger and weaker elements of the story, and provide examples from the text to back up your points.

To help you write your evaluation, you should record your reactions and thoughts as you work your way through a novel you’re planning on reviewing. Here are some aspects of the book to keep in mind as you do.

Your evaluation might focus heartily on the book’s prose:

Donald Barker's review of Mercenary :

Such are the bones of the story. But, of course, it is the manner in which Mr Gaughran puts the bones back together and fills them with life that makes “Mercenary” such a great read. The author’s style seems plain; it seems straightforward and even simple. But an attempt at imitation or emulation quickly proves that simple it is not. He employs short, punchy sentences that generate excellent dialogue dripping with irony, deadpan humour and wit. This, mixed with good descriptive prose, draws the characters – and what characters they are – along with the tumultuous events in which they participated amidst the stinking, steaming heat of the South American jungle, out from the past to the present; alive, scheming, drinking, womanising and fighting, onto the written page.

You can give readers a sense of the book by drawing comparisons to other well-known titles or authors:

Laura Hartman's review of The Mystery of Ruby's Mistletoe :

Reading Ms. Donovan’s book is reminiscent to one of my favorite authors, Dame Agatha Christie. Setting up the suspects in a snowbound house, asking them to meet in the drawing room and the cleverly satisfying conclusion was extremely gratifying. I can picture Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot nodding at Ms. Donovan saying “Well done!”

Not everyone’s tastes are the same, and you can always acknowledge this by calling out specific story elements in your evaluation:

Kevin R. Dickinson's review of The Heart of Stone :

Whether you enjoy Galley’s worldbuilding will depend heavily on preference. Galley delivers information piecemeal, letting the characters, not the author, navigate the reader through Hartlund. A notable example is the magic system, an enigmatic force that lacks the ridge structures of, say, a Brandon Sanderson novel. While the world’s magical workings are explained, you only learn what the characters know and many mysteries remain by the end. Similar choices throughout make the world feel expansive and authentic.

Non-fiction evaluation tip: A book’s topic is only as compelling as its supporting arguments. Your evaluation of a nonfiction book should address that: how clearly and effectively are the points communicated? Turn back to Stefan’s critique for an example of a non-fiction critique that covers key takeaways and readability, without giving away any “big reveals.”

Step 3. Give your recommendation

At the end of the day, your critique needs to answer this question: is this a book you would (or wouldn’t) recommend to other readers? You might wrap up by comparing it to other books in the same genre, or authors with similar styles, such as: “Fans of so-and-so will enjoy this book.”

Let’s take a look at a few more tips:

You don’t need to write, “I recommend this book” — you can make it clear by highlighting your favorable opinion:

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

Add more punch to your rating by mentioning what kind of audience will or won’t enjoy the book:

Charleigh Aleyna Reid's review of The King of FU :

I would recommend this book to anyone who grew up in the 90’s and would like to reminisce about the time, someone who is interested to see what it was like to be a 90’s kid, or perhaps anyone who is looking for a unique, funny story about someone’s life.

Unless you found the title absolutely abhorrent, a good way to balance out a less favorable book review it to share what you did like about the book — before ultimately stating why you wouldn’t recommend the novel:

Nicola O's review of Secrets of the Sea Lord :

Overall, there are plenty of enjoyable elements in this story and fans of Atlantis and mer mythology should give it a try. Despite this, it does not rise above a three-star rating, and while I had some difficulty pinning down why this is, I concluded that it comes from a surprisingly unsophisticated vocabulary. There are a couple of graphic sex scenes, which is absolutely fine in a paranormal romance, but if they were removed, I could easily imagine this as an appealing story for middle-schoolers.

Non-fiction recommendation tip: As with fiction book reviews, share why you did or didn’t enjoy the title. However, in one of the starkest divergences from fiction book reviews it’s more important than ever that you mention your expectations coming into the non-fiction book. For instance, if you’re a cow farmer who’s reading a book on the benefits of becoming a vegetarian, you’re coming in with a large and inherent bias that the book will struggle to alter. So your recommendation should cover your thoughts about the book, while clearly taking account your perspective before you started reading. Let’s look once more at Stefan’s review for an example of a rating that includes an explanation of the reviewer’s own bias.

Bonus tips for writing a book review

Let’s wrap up with a few final tips for writing a compelling review.

Remember, this isn’t a book report. If someone wants the summary of a book, they can read the synopsis. People turn to book reviews for a fellow reader’s take on the book. And for that reason...
Have an opinion. Even if your opinion is totally middle-of-the-line — you didn’t hate the book but you didn’t love it either — state that clearly, and explain why.
Make your stance clear from the outset. Don’t save your opinion just for the evaluation/recommendation. Weave your thoughts about the book into your summary as well, so that readers have an idea of your opinion from the outset.
Back up your points. Instead of just saying, “the prose was evocative” — show readers by providing an actual passage that displays this. Same goes for negative points — don’t simply tell readers you found a character unbelievable, reference a certain (non-spoiler) scene that backs this up.
Provide the details. Don’t forget to weave the book’s information into the review: is this a debut author? Is this one installment of a series? What types of books has the author written before? What is their background? How many pages does the book have? Who published the book? What is the book’s price?
Follow guidelines. Is the review you’re writing for Goodreads? For The New York Times ? The content and tone of your review will vary a good deal from publication to publication.
Learn from others. One of the best ways to learn how to write a great review is to read other reviews! To help you out with that, we’ve published a post all about book review examples .

Writing book reviews can be a rewarding experience! As a book-lover yourself, it’s a great opportunity to help guide readers to their next favorite title. If you’re just getting started as a reviewer and could use a couple more tips and nudges in the right direction, check out our comprehensive blog post on how to become a book reviewer . And if you want to find out which review community is the right fit for you, we recommend taking this quick quiz:

Which review community should you join?

Find out which review community is best for your style. Takes 30 seconds!

Finally, if you feel you've nailed the basics of how to write a book review, we recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can review books for free and are guaranteed people will read them. To register as a book reviewer, simply go here !

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By Anna Todd

'After' utilizes first-person descriptions of events. The book uses short sentences and less complex figures of speech.

Article written by Joshua Ehiosun

C2 certified writer.

‘After’ gives a different meaning to how people view romance. The book emerges an under-explored aspect of romance writing, showing the dark side of love. Throughout the book, one could feel the intense and dark elements of sadness, regrets, hate, and coldness; this gives ‘After’ its characteristic writing.

Romance and Hate

One thing I found interesting with ‘After’ is its duality on hate-romance . At the beginning of the book, you can feel the coldness and hate existing between the main characters, Tessa and Hardin . However, as time progresses, you can feel the subtle warmth of Tessa rubbing off on Hardin. The book creates a balance between the main characters making the subtleness of one character nearly perfectly interject with the coldness of the other character.

As time progresses in ‘After,’ we see the spectrum of the relationship Tessa and Hardin share change from hate to desire and unimaginable love. The direct contradiction and later divergence of each of the main characters’ emotions in ‘After’ gives the book a diverse emotional spectrum.

The Glorification of an Abusive Relationship

Though most people hate to admit this fact, ‘After’ as a book glorifies an abusive relationship. Ever since the creation of the book, both fans, and the author, Anna Todd, has stood by the love Hardin and Tessa share. However, looking from an unbiased perspective, the book mistakes a toxic relationship for a passionate and intense romance novel.

Though love exists between Tessa and Hardin, facing facts will lead us to admit that Hardin Scott was very toxic for most of his relationship with Tessa. Hardin’s coldness and intentional use of words to emotionally destabilize and belittle Tessa shows that their relationship had a high level of abuse and toxicity. Though he also had his share of trauma, Hardin tends to torture Tessa and make her feel she was never enough and in the wrong when he was in the wrong. I found out that even though their toxic relationship was evident, it still added a lot to the plot and the suspense the book emanated.

‘After’ as a Book

Looking deeper at ‘After,’ I will say the book still had many imperfections coursing through its plot.

The first will be poor character descriptions. Though ‘After’ did justice to give a good description of its characters, the book lacked severely in going deeper into its character’s descriptions. Not defining characters further made most of the characters in ‘After’ seem fictitious and unreal. Even the main characters had the same problem as they had no properly defined context from a realistic perspective.

The second issue I had with the book was short and non-detailed sentences. Though the book took place in a formal institution, there was a lack of detailed sentencing that should have projected what each scene wanted to describe. This problem made the sentences in ‘After’ very superficial and unreal.

Another issue I encountered in ‘After’ was the lack of impact other characters had. ‘After’ had many redundant characters whose use could have given the story more detail. The book made some characters completely useless bystanders who only seemed to observe and did not have any effect whatsoever on the plot.

‘After’ and Critics

‘ After’ was a massive failure among critics, with the majority of them scoring the book way below average. Though it has garnered over a billion reads, Critics still feel Anna Todd’s novel is not a book worth reading. Most critics had initially gotten issues with the story plot of ‘ After,’ and the vague description of events, the lack of control each character had over each other, the book formatting, and the massive lack of detail plaguing the storyline.

Most critics believed that though the book had over 500 pages, the valuable parts couldn’t have exceeded 200 pages making the book long, uninteresting, and empty. Other critics stated the book’s massive success is because it was made out of fandom, saying its lack of technicality suits the hungry fans of the boyband One Direction, who do not need a detailed story structure.

Is ‘ After ‘ a bad book according to critics?

According to critics, ‘After’ was a terrible, underperforming book solely made for fan-hungry readers ready to take in any piece of writing junk. though the book is to this day one of the most read books online, it still falls short according to critics.

What is the message of ‘ After ‘?

The main message of ‘ After ‘ will be for one to never trust others because we could sacrifice everything, give up our friendships, and make terrible decisions for someone we love, only to have that same person stab us in the back.

Is Hardin good or bad?

The answer to that question will be both yes and no. Though people won’t want to agree, Hardin is actually a major antagonist in his love story with Tessa. The reason for this verdict is the fact that Hardin betrayed Tessa even when he could have let her in on everything. His selfishness led him to hurt the one girl who cared and loved him no matter what he said or did.

Should I read ‘ After ‘?

Yes, you should. Though the book lacks in many ways, the fact still stands that ‘After’ is a worthy piece of entertainment. However, you may find reading the book boring if you enjoy the technicality of reading and following a perfect storyline.

Did Hardin really love Tessa?

Yes, he did. though Hardin betrayed her, he truly loved Tessa.

After Book Review: A Dark Side to Love

Book Title: After

Book Description: 'After' is a book that follows the love between Tessa, a young 18-ear-old freshman, and Hardin, a cold and rude boy with tattoos.

Book Author: Anna Todd

Book Edition: First Edition

Book Format: Paperback

Publisher - Organization: Gallery Books

Date published: October 21, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4767-9248-4

Number Of Pages: 592

Writing Style
Lasting Effect on Reader

After Book Review

‘After’ is a book that follows the love story of two young adults, Hardin and Tessa. The book perfectly portrays the lasting impact of friends on ones life and how the choices we make when in love affect us. ‘After’ is a good book filled with emotions of hate, desire, love, and betrayal.

Great Story
Interesting Emotional Transitions
Great Portray of Romance
Several Redundant Characters
Inadequate Character Descriptions
Lengthy Story With Unimportant Plots
Lack of Detail in Story

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About Joshua Ehiosun

Joshua is an undying lover of literary works. With a keen sense of humor and passion for coining vague ideas into state-of-the-art worded content, he ensures he puts everything he's got into making his work stand out. With his expertise in writing, Joshua works to scrutinize pieces of literature.

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Real estate partner, book review | ‘on call’: anthony fauci’s story of truth, courage, and scientific leadership.

Written By : Akhileshwar Sahay

Last Updated: September 19, 2024, 15:41 IST

New Delhi, India

Over his 54-year career in public health, Anthony Fauci became the go-to man for seven Presidents of the United States, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden. (AP Photo)

‘On Call’ offers a glimpse into the legacy of Dr Fauci, a figure who has shaped public health for decades. From his pioneering work on HIV/AIDS to his leadership during Covid-19, this memoir reveals a life dedicated to science, truth, and the service of humanity

How does one describe a middle-class boy, born and raised in a working-class neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York, who rises above his humble beginnings to become an institution par excellence – a doctor, clinician, scientist, science administrator, and public health expert? Over his 54-year career in public health, he became the go-to man for seven Presidents of the United States, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, managing numerous public health crises, including two of the worst pandemics in a century – HIV/AIDS and Covid-19.

In the intervening years, he guided research and helped shape public policy interventions on a multitude of public health catastrophes arising from numerous infectious diseases, including SARS, MERS, anthrax, avian influenza, measles, swine flu, Zika, and Ebola. Additionally, he led the USA’s bioterror countermeasures in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Motto of Life

His motto was: “You don’t worry about that. You just keep telling the truth.” His contributions earned him both accolades and criticism, yet he remained undeterred, consistently telling the truth as he understood it, and correcting himself when new facts emerged. He remained steadfast despite hate mail, harsh media coverage, and death threats to him and his family, earning the moniker “most trusted doctor in America.”

Not Just an Autobiography or Memoir

This is the story of 83-year-old Dr Anthony Fauci, as recounted in his own words in his 455-page book, On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service . Make no mistake, On Call is neither an autobiography nor a memoir in the traditional sense – it is much more. It urges readers to appreciate the value of public service and encourages society and governments to develop a robust public health infrastructure grounded in science. Above all, the central message of his book is to “keep going when things get hard” and to cultivate empathy and the ability to listen in order to help others.

In On Call , though restrained and gentlemanly in tone, Fauci tells a riveting story of his very public professional life with rare candour, without remorse or rancour. In September 2022, when Fauci resigned from his federal public health service positions, Science magazine wrote matter-of-factly: “In 1984, when Anthony Fauci took over as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), his wife gave him a plant for the new office. Both the palm and the 81-year-old physician are still there, the giant plant now crowding the office of one of the most celebrated—and polarizing—scientific figures in U.S. history. But not for much longer. Fauci announced on 22 August that he would step down at the end of the year from both NIAID and his post as the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden.”

As one navigates through the 455 pages of On Call , the unmistakable message emerges: Anthony Fauci is arguably not only the most famous—and most revered—scientist, physician, and public health administrator in the world today, but this straight-talking, towering figure is also one of the few scientists that America and the world (post-Covid) recognise by name.

As one delves deeper into his decades-long career—both in what he has written in the book and what he has left out—one cannot help but admire the way he speaks truth to power, even to the President(s) of the United States. Unsurprisingly, he was thrust into the epicentre of many public health crises under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

On Call is the story of this remarkable “America’s doctor,” who, over nearly six decades, bravely fought many infectious diseases, epidemics, and pandemics. It traces his journey in unearthing causes and consequences, doggedly pursuing aetiology, and fighting to invent safe vaccines and treatment protocols for life-threatening maladies.

Standing Tall

Anthony Fauci became a household name globally when he emerged as a trusted voice of America during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the longest part of his professional career—and the longest portion of his book (pages 22 to 166)—was devoted to combating HIV/AIDS. Fauci was first introduced to the disease early in his career when it initially surfaced and was mistakenly referred to as “Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia” and “Kaposi’s sarcoma” among homosexual men.

In 1981, Fauci made a pivotal decision to dedicate his career to fighting this devastating illness, which was claiming young lives violently. Despite warnings from friends and advisors that he might be making a potentially career-ending mistake, Fauci committed himself to this cause and never looked back.

In the chapter titled “Up Close and Painful,” Fauci recounts his early encounters with the lethal HIV/AIDS epidemic. He describes how the ten years of training and experience he had accumulated in treating and curing very ill patients seemed to evaporate as he faced an influx of terminally ill patients suffering from a disease he neither knew the name of nor had a cure for. Fauci reflects on this period in the book, noting, “It felt as if we were putting band-aids on a haemorrhage.”

It was as dire as it could get.

Devastatingly Devastated

In 1982, Dr Fauci was devastated when Ron Rinaldi, an early HIV/AIDS patient, died a miserable death after contracting cytomegalovirus, which attacked his retina and made him blind. Fauci writes about Ron’s blindness, noting that “it is the one scene among many that comes back to him often.” He also reflects that although he could not fully appreciate it at the time, he would soon encounter hundreds of similar stories in his ward.

Discussing the grief following Ron’s painful death, Fauci writes: “I had experienced grief before. I lost my mother to cancer when I was twenty-four, and I knew how it felt to lose someone I loved deeply. But the loss we were experiencing now was different by several magnitudes. It was chronic, pervasive… And now I was seeing wave after wave of men, often in their twenties and thirties, handed a death sentence with none of my training or temperament providing a bulwark against that horrible, inevitable outcome. Helpless was the only way to describe it, as if we were battling an unseen enemy in a war zone—an enemy that was steadily overtaking us.”

It was a decades-long war against this unseen enemy that Fauci made the mission of his life.

The Activist

The HIV/AIDS mission gave him immense satisfaction, even though he faced criticism, including being called “murderer Fauci” in op-eds and having his effigies burned for allegedly not doing enough. However, by championing the cause, Fauci built relationships with activists, often welcoming them to his office and private dinners, while other government officials refused to meet with patient advocates.

This approach made Anthony Fauci authentic in the eyes of activists, the public, and presidents alike.

The High-Point

The high point of Fauci’s relentless fight against HIV/AIDS was arguably his relationship with President George W. Bush. It was Bush who appointed Anthony Fauci as the chief architect of the largest HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programme—the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Discussing the impact of PEPFAR, Fauci writes in On Call that, in terms of lives saved during his career, PEPFAR, with more than $100 billion invested in helping over 50 countries prevent and treat HIV infections, stands out as a significant achievement that saved millions of lives, particularly in Africa.

Just the Beginning

The fight with HIV/AIDS became the initial stepping stone that established Fauci as the go-to man for American Presidents. But that was not all. He would go on to fight many more battles against infectious diseases—West Nile Virus under Bill Clinton, anthrax and bioterror countermeasures under George W. Bush, and anthrax and Ebola under Barack Obama. And, of course, Covid-19 under both Trump and Biden.

Dare to Dare

Fauci writes that he did what he could because of the absolute trust of Presidents, except one, which I will discuss later. The truth is that from 1987—barely three years after becoming Director of NIAID—Dr Fauci became an advisor to American presidents, vice presidents, and ministers, starting with President Ronald Reagan and Vice President H. W. Bush, and this role continued for four and a half decades.

In all his decades-long interactions with prominent figures in Washington, Fauci adhered to the sage advice of his friend Dr James F. Dickson III (a veteran of the Nixon administration). The first piece of advice was: “Some people might fall into the trap of never wanting to disappoint a powerful figure, and so they slant their advice towards pleasing rather than advising. Don’t fall into that trap.” The second was: “If you are consistent and totally honest, you might risk being dropped as an adviser, but this approach with the right kind of President and Vice President can also engender respect and a durable relationship.”

It is precisely this commitment to telling the truth based on scientific evidence and the best judgement, delivered without sugar-coating, that saw Fauci through seven American presidents, including the mercurial Donald Trump, and hundreds of Congressional hearings.

No one Says No to the President

There is a famous saying in America: no one says no to the President. Fauci faced this dilemma within five years at the helm of NIAID. With the elevation of George H.W. Bush to the presidency, it was time to appoint a new Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which, apart from being the parent body of NIAID, also oversees more than twenty institutes with diverse mandates such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, neurological, and mental disorders.

President Bush decided that Dr. Fauci should take on the role. However, Fauci was not interested. He knew his calling was to be a hands-on scientist in the lab and a clinician treating severely ill AIDS patients, not to administer the NIH. The problem was who would tell the President.

On October 30, 1989, Fauci was driven to the White House by Dr. Louis Thompson, Secretary of HHS, in his official car. The two were ushered into the Oval Office, where the President offered Fauci the chair of NIH, which he declined stoically with measured words: “Mr President, I believe that I can serve you and the country better if I remain where I am. This is what I want to do, what I love to do, and what I do very well, and I believe that in the long run, this is what you would want me to do, so I will have to respectfully decline your offer.”

This was a rare instance of a civil servant saying no to the President of the United States. But President Bush responded, “You know Tony, I respected you greatly before today, but now I respect you even more. The country needs you. So go back and do your thing, and I promise you we will stay in touch.”

Having set the record straight, Fauci always spoke the truth rather than saying what would please the President of the United States.

Expect the Unexpected

Having said that, there was never a dull moment in the professional life of Fauci, for whom expecting the unexpected became the norm. Whether it was dealing with sudden outbreaks of infectious diseases, epidemics, and pandemics, or managing relations with Presidents to whom he became a top advisor, his career was anything but predictable. This also made him the most trusted communicator to the public.

It was not easy being Dr Anthony Fauci. For fifty-four years, he worked 24/7, often managing with just three to four hours of sleep at the best of times. Life was always a road less travelled for him. He and his family faced constant challenges, including hate mail, public rebukes from activists, and more than one death threat forcing his house to have a Secret Service detail stationed outside for protection. One extreme case of hostility that Fauci faced was as the murderer of five million people by Senator Rand Paul.

It would not be out of context to say that Fauci did not merely treat infectious diseases but rather ‘served the public and humanity for 54 years.’ This truth is aptly captured in the title of his book: On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service .

Warrior Par Excellence

Few Indians knew of Anthony Fauci before Covid-19. As a public health researcher for the past two decades, I had some awareness of his role as an HIV-AIDS crusader, but nothing had prepared me for the colossus that emerges from reading his 455-page memoir. All I can say is that few individuals, of any age, possess the experience, expertise, résumé, or stamina of the 83-year-old Dr Anthony Fauci. Although he has retired from public service, as he writes in the epilogue of the book, he continues to lecture and write, and to encourage and inspire people to pursue careers in science, medicine, and public health. He adds, “There are a lot of things that are unfinished business, and they will be finished sometime because science is going to do it.”

Fauci is cautiously optimistic about the “future of science” and most recently, in an interview with People’s Magazine on 2 July 2024, he said: “Better angels will come out.”

Pertinacious Amid Controversies Galore

Among the many battles Fauci has fought, the toughest was battling a losing war against Covid-19. While speaking plainly and defending scientifically evidenced facts endeared him to the confused and frightened populace across America and the world, he also became the target of extreme frustration, ongoing criticism, and frequent violent threats. He was blamed for the collapse of the economy, turmoil in the stock market, job losses, school closures, loss of life, and even for the trillions of dollars lost to the US economy.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Anthony Fauci was repeatedly compelled to refute the falsehoods spread by President Trump, which strained his relationship with Trump and the Republicans. In the chapter “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,” Fauci recounts one of the many telephone calls from Trump, where he became the target of the President’s rage. Trump shouted in anger at Fauci for his accurate remarks made during a video interview with Howard Bauchner, the editor-in-chief of JAMA, where Fauci stated that “immunity for coronavirus was usually six months to a year….”

At the Centre of the Maelstrom

The role of Dr Fauci in guiding America and the world, sanely and calmly through Covid-19 earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern global history. However, when he continued to tell the truth about Covid-19 as he understood it, his voice was silenced. He was prevented from speaking to the press without the White House’s permission by the Trump administration. In his own words, “the truth generated a lot of hostility towards him in one administration (read Trump).”

It has been a year and a half since Fauci left federal public service, but controversies persist, and he remains at the centre of the storm. For some, it is “In Fauci we trust,” while for others, it is “Even my dog hates Fauci,” with many coronavirus deniers, conspiracy theorists, and anti-vaxxers blaming Fauci personally for struggles with school closures, mask mandates, and vaccine recommendations.

All of the above was despite the fact that the “SWAT team” of vaccine researchers under Fauci’s guidance, along with scientists at his institute, aggressively pursued a Covid-19 vaccine. Astonishingly, in less than a year, they brought one out in partnership with Moderna that was even more effective than Fauci had dared hope, achieving an efficacy of over 90 per cent. According to the Commonwealth Fund, it is estimated that this vaccine saved 3.2 million lives in the United States alone and prevented 18.5 million hospitalisations.

Rearview Mirror – The Legacy

Dr Anthony Fauci’s legacy is immense for one person. In his own words, once he embarked on a career in infectious diseases and immunology, his period of quiet and predictable life came to an end. This was completely upended in 1981 when he made fighting the suffering and death caused by AIDS his vocation. The illness brought him profound pain, but being part of a group that enabled AIDS patients to live normal lives gave him immense satisfaction.

Fauci repeatedly found himself at the forefront of the unknown—facing life-threatening diseases such as Ebola and Zika, as well as threats like anthrax and smallpox.

Dr Anthony Fauci leaves behind a legacy that is difficult to encapsulate in a “book review.” To fully grasp it, readers must turn to On Call , which has been on the bestseller list for three months. It is clear that in his remarkable fifty-four years of public service, he changed the course of numerous infectious diseases. This is the same Fauci who, in 1988, was labelled “murderer Fauci” by Larry Kramer, America’s best-known AIDS activist, in an article in the San Francisco Examiner . Over the following three decades, Kramer and Fauci became close friends, with Fauci emerging as America’s foremost doctor on HIV/AIDS.

On the eve of his hanging boots from public service in 2022, Dr Anthony Fauci told Science magazine in an interview, “I’m not going to sit in my house.” This book is the finest testament to what he has done since his retirement.

A Call for India to Embrace a Fauci-Like Approach

I humbly posit that it is now time for Dr Anthony Fauci’s prophecy that “better angels will come” to become true. When it comes to infectious diseases, one cannot predict “what tomorrow will be like”. A telling example of the need for many more figures like Dr Fauci in India is illustrated by a recent event. Just last month, Fauci himself was hospitalised for eleven days after contracting the mosquito-borne West Nile virus. He described this as the worst illness of his life, something like being “hit by a truck” noting that it will take months for him to fully recover.

For the benefit of readers, there is currently no vaccination or specific treatment for West Nile virus infection. This is just one of many emerging threats—Monkeypox is another. The central message I take from reading the book is that India needs to seek out its own Dr Fauci and develop a robust infectious disease prevention and treatment infrastructure to ensure the safety of its citizens.

The author is Multidisciplinary Thought Leader with Action Bias, India Based International Impact Consultant, and keen watcher of changing national and international scenarios. He also is an independent book reviewer He works as President Advisory Services of Consulting Company BARSYL. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.

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COMMENTS

'After Story' by Larissa Behrendt
After Story is a book about a mother-daughter trip to England's literary sites, but it also explores themes of grief, colonialism, storytelling and identity. The novel is told in two voices, before and after the trip, and has a bookish flavour and unexpected depths.
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Book Review: Larissa Behrendt dissects complex family relationships in
Larissa Behrendt doesn't pull any punches in this poignant but difficult examination of family relationships, racism, and the justice system.After Story is a captivating tale about a mother and daughter trying to reconnect after years of tragedy, trauma and secrets have created rifts between them.. Bookworm Jasmine is a lawyer and the first of her family to leave the small country town of ...
Book review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt
Larissa Behrendt (image courtesy UQP) While there is a great deal of pain and sadness in After Story, which expertly weaves in backstory and exposition in a way that never feels clunky or forced, there is also slowly simmering hope and the promise of nascent renewal as Della, who rediscovers the wisdom and storytelling power of her culture and ...
Book Review: After Story, by Larissa Behrendt
Book Review: After Story, by Larissa Behrendt First Nations lawyer, Jasmine, takes her mum, Della, on a literary tour of England. Bound together only by the labels of family, Jasmine resents her mother and their shared connection but hopes that the trip will help them heal from the trauma of their shared past.
Book review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt
Book review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt. Larissa Behrendt's After Story included some of my favourite bookish elements - travel, relationships and culture. After Story centres on an Indigenous mother and daughter who take a literary tour of England. Here, two cultures sit uncomfortably side-by-side as the daughter, Jasmine, and her ...
Review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt
A mother-daughter novel about trauma, culture and storytelling, set in England and Australia. Readings Books recommends this powerful and compassionate book by award-winning author Larissa Behrendt.
Larissa Behrendt, After story (#BookReview)
The 2002 book deals with what happened in that region snd vigorously interrogates the benign and untruthful stories - the myths - of invader "settlement" etc. I haven't read After Story - but there are themes in Mark McKenna's book which LB seems to be touching on according to your review. Thanks.
Debra Adelaide reviews 'After Story' by Larissa Behrendt
Debra Adelaide has published eighteen books, including novels, short fiction, and essays, the most recent of which is The Innocent Reader (2019). Until 2020 she was an associate professor in the creative writing program at the University of Technology Sydney. After Story. by Larissa Behrendt. University of Queensland Press, $32.99 pb, 306 pp.
After Story : Behrendt, Larissa: Amazon.com.au: Books
After Story. Paperback - 2 July 2021. by Larissa Behrendt (Author) 4.2 891 ratings. See all formats and editions. When a mother and daughter take the overseas trip of a lifetime, they discover that the past is never quite behind them. When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England's most revered literary ...
After Story
After Story, published in 2021, is the third novel by Larissa Behrendt. Plot summary. Jasmine, an ambitious Indigenous lawyer, invites her mother, Della, at the last minute to a literary tour of Britain. Although Jasmine has moved to the city, Della has remained in her small New South Wales town her whole life. The relationship between mother ...
After Story
After Story. by. Larissa. Behrendt. When a mother and daughter take the overseas trip of a lifetime, they discover that the past is never quite behind them. Available. Dispatched 2-3 business days. When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother, Della, on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring ...
AudioBook Review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt
Claire Louisa Audiobook, Australian Authors, Australian women writers, Book Reviews, My reading Aug 25, 2024 3 Minutes 4.5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ This novel has been on my TBR list since it was released in 2021, when one of the blog posts I participate in chose it as the starting book for September I thought it was time I read it.
After Story by Larissa Behrendt
Told over the course of a 10-day literary tour of England, After Story centres on the difficult relationship between a First Nations mother and daughter. After scoring a free ticket, ambitious lawyer, Jasmine, invites her easy-going mother to join her on the tour, hoping the time together will bring them closer.With shades of Edina and Saffy, the two share cramped hotel accommodation, where ...
After Story by Larissa Behrendt
Larissa is the author of three novels- Home, which won the 2002 David Unaipon Award and the regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book; Legacy, which won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; and After Story. She has published numerous books on Indigenous legal issues; her most recent non-fiction book ...
17 Book Review Examples to Help You Write the Perfect Review
Learn how to write a book review with 17 examples from different genres and platforms. See how book reviewers summarize, evaluate, and recommend books in various styles and tones.
How to Write a Book Review in 3 Steps
Learn the basics of literary criticism and get tips on how to write a book review for free or for pay. Follow the three steps: provide a summary, present your evaluation, and give your recommendation.
After Review: A Dark Side to Love
3.3. After Book Review. 'After' is a book that follows the love story of two young adults, Hardin and Tessa. The book perfectly portrays the lasting impact of friends on ones life and how the choices we make when in love affect us. 'After' is a good book filled with emotions of hate, desire, love, and betrayal. Pros.
Book Review
On Call. In On Call, though restrained and gentlemanly in tone, Fauci tells a riveting story of his very public professional life with rare candour, without remorse or rancour.In September 2022, when Fauci resigned from his federal public health service positions, Science magazine wrote matter-of-factly: "In 1984, when Anthony Fauci took over as head of the National Institute of Allergy and ...

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