“This timely novel takes on friendship, desire, fear, and vulnerability in one incisive, witty, and powerful package.” –People “Astonishes with the force of its unexpected beauty.” –The New York Times Book Review The author of the “graceful and compassionate” (People) New York Times bestseller Carry the One presents a new and long-awaited novel exploring what happens when untested people are … and long-awaited novel exploring what happens when untested people are put to a hard test, and in its aftermath, find themselves in a newly uncertain world.
It’s the fall of 2016. Cate, a set designer in her early forties, lives and works in Chicago’s theater community. She has stayed too long at the fair and knows it’s time to get past her prolonged adolescence and stop taking handouts from her parents. She has a firm plan to get solvent and settled in a serious relationship. She has tentatively started something new even as she’s haunted by an old, going-nowhere affair. Her ex-husband, recently booted from his most recent marriage, is currently camped out in Cate’s spare bedroom, in thrall to online conspiracy theories, and she’s not sure how to help him. Her best friend Neale, a yoga instructor, lives nearby with her son and is Cate’s model for what serious adulthood looks like.
Only a few blocks away, but in a parallel universe we find Nathan and Irene–casual sociopaths, drug addicts, and small-time criminals. Their world and Cate’s intersect the day she comes into Neale’s kitchen to find these strangers assaulting her friend. Forced to take fast, spontaneous action, Cate does something she’s never even considered. She now also knows the violence she is capable of, as does everyone else in her life, and overnight, their world has changed. Anshaw’s flawed, sympathetic, and uncannily familiar characters grapple with their altered relationships and identities against the backdrop of the new Trump presidency and a country waking to a different understanding of itself. Eloquent, moving, and beautifully observed, Right after the Weather is the work of a master of exquisite prose and a wry and compassionate student of the human condition writing at the height of her considerable powers.
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This was a very slow, plodding tale. I could not connect with Cate, the main character. Though the author developed her life and portrayed her well. But there was just not enough ooomph for me to say that I enjoyed the book. I think the fact that it took so long to get to the plot, was discouraging.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
I did not finish Right After the Weather because I cannot stand when a work of fiction gets heavily political. If I want that, I’ll choose a book about politics or with politics at its core, like a book about the CIA’s inner workings or something. I read to escape the 24/7 politics everywhere climate we live in these days.
That said, had this book not leaned so heavily on politics I might have finished it. The writing was okay and the story pulled me in.
Would I recommend this book? No.
Normally I would not leave a review if I didn’t finish, but this time I felt I needed to because I know there are many, many people out there that feel like I do about politics in the books they read.
I received an ARC at my request and thank Netgalley, the publisher and author.
This is a wonderful, character-driven novel, full of exquisite writing. While I would never call it “funny,” because of the subject matter, there are many very funny lines and scenes because of the author’s uncanny power of observation and wry, apt dialog.
Please see my full review in The New York Journal of Books:
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/right-after-weather
A different type of book than I am used to reading but thought I would give it a go. The Characters are very well written and the storyline is to say the least unique! Not my cup of tea but interesting to see how the story developes and how characters discover they are stronger than they think.
“If she were the truly decent human she’d like to be, she’s be honest about what ‘s going on. Which would be the beginning of the end of her and Maureen. But she’s not there yet. ”
This is a story seen primarily through Cate: a lesbian set designer, daughter of 2 artists, presently living with her increasingly paranoid ex husband camped out in her guest room with his dog Sailor; dating Maureen, a well off costume designer who alternatively drives her ethics nuts but overall she accepts it; and has a best friend, Neale who lives with her son Joe in the house she got in the divorce from his father. Quite a hodgepodge of normal almost well off Chicagoans.
Until the night the unthinkable happens to Neale and Cate kills her perpetrator. The well maintained facade everyone has begins to let the real world in. Neale wants to ignore it, her parents swoop in to save her, As her son tells his father who comes back into the picture and banishes them. Cate’s ex won’t leave the house at all anymore, and Cate takes on a job in NYC as a set designer for an off Broadway play that in some strange way reflects what happens when things drastically change. Her mind for detail allows her to step outside and act/react, with decisions being made that might have been different before the home invasion.
This is a haunting book. Both attractive and repellent, as you move through it, you the reader are a witness and an actor in the story. This is the joy of a Carol Anshaw book. The author sweeps you along without stopping to explain much, and,at the end, leaves you wondering what just happened and how might it have been if it happened another way. The other thing I really like is that Anshaw writes characters without apologies – they are who they are . Their backstory only matters when it does. At least at the present moment this is what matters. We should have more writers like Carol Anshaw. Highly recommended 5/5
[Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher and voluntarily read and reviewed it.]