After the War

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Finale
Review: After the War is a beautiful finale to the wonderful writing career of Alice Adams. In typical Alice Adams style, this novel follows the life of her main character, Cynthia Baird, and also weaves itself around the lives of other characters important to Cynthia. Utilizing the character "vignettes" that Adams so wonderfully writes, the novel takes the reader through the emotions of love, rejection, death and strengthening of personal character. Fans of Alice Adams MUST read this book!

Rating:
Summary: maybe better kept unpublished
Review: First of all, I have to say Alice Adams is (was, alas) one of my favorite writers. Of short stories. Not novels. I was thrilled to have won a short story competition to be in one of her workshops. To me, almost all of her many stories are perfect. I can read them over and over. Her novels, however, are a different story. Rich Rewards has its rewards and there is something intriguing about Second Chances. But all the others left me disappointed. A disaster. Which is how I saw "After the War" from page one. A mess. Ridiculous characters. Cliche after cliche. Please, I would rather that my memories of Alice Adams did not include this awful work.

Rating:
Summary: After the War was a chore...
Review: I actually bought this book before I bought the more superior "A Southern Exposure". "After the War" is the sequel.

"After the War" was too pat. The precocious Abby got really boring. She hooked up with a man and was on the way to getting married and leading a predictable life. She would have her own career but so what? I think she would have been more interesting single and on her own for a couple of years, traveling the world and learning about life.

As in "Exposure", Cynthia Baird continued to be flighty and confused most of the time. Miraculously, she was accepted to law school. Maybe she was the precursor to Ally McBeal. I don't know. She has the nerve to complain about her husband's affair ad nauseum when she was busy having her own affair(s).

The gay rights movement has changed the way authors portray gay characters. Thirty years ago, the gay character would be a sad lonely man. In our thankfully more enlightened time, the gay character finds love, pretty quickly, but unfortunately this results in there being little conflict. Adams portrays the lesbian character in Superior Women quite differently - and more effectively.

In any case, sequels are rarely as good as the original, so read this but also peruse "A Southern Exposure."