After

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

“After” refers to the 14 months following Montreal’s Francis
Gregory’s learning that his father had committed suicide. Francis, 15,
says, “This isn’t the story of what I did that year. It’s the
story of what I felt.” Contributing to the young teen’s grief is his
overwhelming sense of guilt. He believes that, had he not been on a
school field trip to New York City, he might have prevented Papa, as he
calls him, from hanging himself. A year earlier, Francis’s arrival
home from school had interrupted his unemployed and depressed father’s
first suicide attempt.

Through Francis’s eyes, readers witness the funeral and the
post-funeral reception as he reacts to these societal rituals, and then
follow his family (Maman, Lisa, and kindergarten-aged brother, Luc) as
they individually struggle to understand this terrible happening. Beyond
his overarching grief, Francis experiences numerous other emotions
including being jealous of friends with fathers and shame at being
“Son of Suicide Man.” Francis also recalls happier times, including
an important rite of passage when he was seven and his father taught him
to play poker. As the months pass, aspects of Francis’s life gradually
return to normal, but the grief monster still lurks. Keeping a date his
father had made some 40 years before brings Francis closer to achieving
some closure.

Though the book spans June 1992–August 1993, its time setting could
be the present. The closing three pages, set five years later, update
readers on the family’s progress. After is an emotionally powerful
read. Highly recommended.