Chippewa Valley 5ive for Women The Chippewa Valley’s Premier Magazine for Women!
Related Articles
ASK AGAIN, YES
By Mary Beth Keane
The novel Ask Again, Yes is a story about two families, the Gleasons and the Stanhopes, and it spans over four decades. We learn about the lifelong friendship and love of Francis and Lena’s daughter, Kate, and Brian and Anne’s son, Peter.
Author Mary Beth Keane weaves together all the things that happen in life–friendship, love, forgiveness, mental illness, alcoholism–and the tragedies that happen throughout a lifetime.
Keane seems to understand the silence that surrounds so many problems that families deal with throughout their lives.
Switching perspectives throughout the book, she gives us the viewpoints of all the members of each family.
Kate and Peter’s story tells us so wonderfully how grace can rise from forgiveness. It is an epic family tale that had me reading late into the night.
If you think, like many others did, that Ask Again, Yes is rather an unusual title for a book, you will have an “aha” moment when at the end of the story you realize why she named it as she did.
This is a great story, beautifully told.
About the Author:
Mary Beth Keane is an American writer of Irish parents. She was born in the Bronx, New York City, and raised in Pearl River, New York. She continues to live in Pearl River with her husband and their two sons.
Keane grew up in a home without books, and a teacher helped her realize she could write her own books.
She attended Barnard College and the University of Virginia.
Keane has also written The Walking People and Fever.
