After Lydia

by Sandra Tyler

Returning home for the celebration of her grandmother's eightieth birthday with an erstwhile lover her family dislikes, Vickie is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding her mother's death and comes to question her ties to her family. Sandra Tyler’s novel speaks compellingly about the most vital and meaningful moments of our lives, those often disguised as ordinary family life.

"Sandra Tyler is a pure writer. Her sentences are always just right. She creates characters that are rank with all our excesses, our timidities, our tendernesses...Tyler writes about women, women who have children who don’t want to stay by their sides. She understands the female journey is outward at a price of losing home and homeward at a price of losing the world...This writing is careful, even graceful, dancing off, slantwise, the grief that dwells with us in our dwellings...Anybody that can curl up in a chair and read past dusk should find this book and take it home. Anybody who has a child, who has a parent, who has taken turns in their life that might have been mistakes, that disguise the wished for, the abandoned, the great fear of the dark, should take this book home and enjoy it." – Anne Roiphe, The East Hampton Star

306 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1995

Reviews

[Piper Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most dramatic families I've EVER read about. Like, seriously! They need therapy!

[Joan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting into the story or relating to any of the characters. It was never clear to me what some of the underlying tensions and problems were between the various family members. It was also unclear if this was a formerly wealthy family that had fallen on harder times or what. There were lots of mentions of private schools and "the club" but the family did not seem to live as if they were very well off financially. I couldn't tell if the mother (who had died before the book started) was supposed to be portrayed as a free spirit who lived her life independently and not according to the expectations of others, or if she was working hard at living up to what society and her family demanded and expecting others (her husband and her daughters) to do the same. There were a lot of things like this that seemed inconsistent in the book and kept me from having any understanding of the characters and why they felt and acted like they did. There were glimpses of writing that I enjoyed, especially the parts about Alex, so I am not giving up on this author completely. I just wish there had been more clarity about what was really going on with these characters.

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lydia has died in an apparent accident, leaving behind two grown daughters, a husband, brother, mother, and very dear friend. Six months after her death, one daughter decides to give her grandmother a birthday party to which everyone in town is invited. There are so many unfinished matters that there is no possibility of an uneventful gathering. This book is about not knowing one another or ourselves, it is also about forgiveness and responsibility.

[Carolyn]

another by my cousin-author!