Book Review : ASK AGAIN, YES by Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes is a hopeful, shining, glorious story that brings forcefully home the message that no matter how bad things may seem in the moment, in retrospect and with context, we will feel redeemed.

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When did I start reading emotionally complex stories?

That’s what I asked myself midway through Mary Beth Keane’s brilliant novel Ask Again, Yes.

The likely correct answer is that it began long, long ago – but I had intentionally overlooked or side-stepped all emotional elements to focus on facts and events alone. Lately, though, I find myself enjoying stories in all their dimensionality.

Which is why I’m lucky to be reading this book now, rather than 30 years ago (though it would be also physically impossible, since Keane published this, her third novel, only in 2019)

Start reading, and you’ll sink smoothly into the narrative. I loved how seamlessly scenes switch to effortlessly skim across years and still let a reader catch up – in just a few sentences or paragraphs – with the salient happenings in the interim.

Yet what stands out most vividly is the characters in her story – Francis, Lena and Kate Gleeson, who are neighbors of Anne, Brian and Peter Stanhope.

Barely a fifth of the way through this book, I already seemed to know each of them deeply, personally. The author takes us right into their heads, until we know and feel them in an intimate way.

Which is great, because each of them grows and evolves over the course of decades traced by the tale… and we become a part of that progression.

Through one person’s madness, another’s suffering, a third’s devotion and one more’s alcoholism, the twists and turns of a beautifully told story lead eventually to a rather stunning realization…

Everyone is a victim, none a perp.

We’re all broken, just in different ways. How do we let that affect, impact and change us?

It’s startling to realize that there are ways to accept the brokenness and still heal, forgive, accept and carry on. That’s the big premise upon which this lovely novel is based.

While I was reading ‘Ask Again, Yes‘ Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ and delivered an amazing acceptance speech, in which he said:

“Many have given me a second chance. And I think that’s when we’re at our best, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow. When we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of humanity.”

Ask Again, Yes‘ is, ultimately, a story of redemption.

As the character who has half his face blown away says towards the end:

“All the things that had happened in their lives had not hurt them in any essential way, despite what they may have believed at times. He had not lost anything; he’d only gained.”

It’s also a tale of forgiveness…

“How does a person apologize for what I did? I honestly don’t know,” asks the character who shot him.

It leads him to realize she isn’t really to blame.

It’s a scene that will bring tears to your eyes, because by then you’ve yourself gone through the process – of feeling angry, numb, resigned, compassionate… and eventually, ready to forgive!

Ask Again, Yes‘ is also a heart-warming romance…

“It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, he knew. It was that she loved him so much that it frightened her, loved him so much that she worried she might have to protect herself from it. He tried to let her know that he’d figured that out, finally, that there was no need to explain, but then he realized that she might not know it herself.”

And it shares a sense of pre-determination, of destiny…

“If they unfolded and unfolded the largest map they could find, where he started and where he ended up would be two small dots on that map, side by side.”

Most important, though, it’s a book that’s planned, constructed and written oh-so-beautifully.

Here’s my most favorite sentence of all in the novel:

“They were apart long enough to know the shape of each other’s absence.”


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