Title: Ask Again, Yes
Author: Mary Beth Keane
Publication Date: May 28, 2019
Publisher: Scribner
Page Count: 400 pages
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
At the start of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope are NYPD rookies assigned to the same precinct. They’re not friends, but when they eventually become neighbors in a suburb outside the city, the two men and their families find themselves intertwined for decades to come. Their children, Peter and Katie, form an instant connection, and even when tragedy strikes, they can’t stay apart despite their parents’ demands. The book follows both families, with Peter and Katie at the center as they grow up, fall in love, and deal with the repercussions of their parent’s actions.
Addiction and mental health are central to the plot of Ask Again, Yes. The book starts in the 70s and covers about 40 years, allowing us to see a shift in the perception of both of these over time. At the beginning of the book, characters’ struggles with mental illness and addiction aren’t dealt with responsibly — they’re swept under the rug until they become unavoidable. As time passes and public perception changes, so do the characters’ experiences, and we start to see a narrative that resembles what is slowly becoming our society’s norm. We also experience these intense topics from children’s perspectives, and again see how their perspectives change as they grow older and start to draw their own conclusions. We, as readers, learn the truth along with the children, making them the true unreliable narrators of this story.
Even with its narrative traversing decades, the book’s overall message on addiction and mental illness is refreshingly modern. We see characters who suffer from both at their bests and their absolute worsts. We see them make mistakes and hurt people, often beyond their control. We see them enter treatment facilities. We see them relapse. But we also see them recover, go on to make amends, and lead fulfilling lives.
I thought the pacing of this book was really effective. The beginning is pretty consistent, but as time goes on and our characters age, we skip years, sometimes almost decades, at a time. Sometimes, entire stages of characters’ lives are summarized by other characters’ observations, which I thought worked really well. It’s a multigenerational story that follows three generations of Gleesons and Stanhopes, each with their own stories to tell. Rather than explore each stage of each generation’s life in full detail, Keane artfully summarizes some, allowing more crucial plot points their due time. This book easily could have been 600 pages, but I’m glad it was condensed into something more digestible and poetic.
Overall, I would highly recommend Ask Again, Yes to someone who enjoys multigenerational stories, family drama, and slow builds that really reward you in the end. I might go as far as to call it a modern day Romeo and Juliet, but don’t let that make or break your decision to read this. Just a passing observation.
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