Ask Again, Yes

Mary Beth Keane shrewdly dissects the tensions and connections between two families.

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Review of ‘Ask Again, Yes’

Mary Beth Keane’s well-wrought, emotionally affecting third novel, Ask Again, Yes, chronicles the lives of two neighboring working-class families over the course of four decades.

In the early 1970s, Francis Gleason, an immigrant from Ireland, and Brian Stanhope attend the New York City police academy together and are paired in field training. Francis quickly marries…

Interview with Mary Beth Keane

In Ask Again, Yes, her third novel, Mary Beth Keane tells a wise and searching story of two families who are neighbors in the suburbs north of New York City. Over the course of 40 years, the families are riven by a mother’s violent act and brought back together through the enduring bonds that link two of their children. The author touches on profound questions of contemporary family life.

Featuring ‘Ask Again, Yes’

Book Clubs: Secrets of suburbia

Reading groups who fell for Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere—now a series on Hulu—will savor these smart, sophisticated and brisk domestic dramas.

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