The DCBC met on Sunday, June 24, 2022 to discuss June's book: What Comes After, by Joanne Tompkins (selected by Ali).
Attendees were: Miriam, Sarah, Jessy, Ali, Lauren, and Annabelle.
“We didn’t know how to think of ourselves.”
― JoAnne Tompkins, What Comes After
What Comes After was a decently written novel in which a pair of teenage boys are dead--one at the hands of the other and one via suicide. Their parents are grieving in their own ways when a pregnant teenage runaway who knew the teens before their deaths shows up, and in getting to know each other, begin to make a life in the aftermath. There were a number of issues that we discussed, including how a number of characters and chapters could have been better developed. The story alternates between Isaac, the Quaker father of the murdered teen Daniel, Evangeline, the pregnant runaway, and Jonah, the teen who committed suicide after killing Daniel (Jonah's chapters are naturally out of chronological order from the other two perspectives). Lorrie, Jonah's mother, whose own perspective may have been valuable, does not have any chapters from her perspective, so we don't learn about what she is going through. She is also, sadly, somewhat relegated to a caretaking role, when she makes an appearance on the page to assist Isaac and Evangeline with events in their lives.
“I’m not sure where you’re coming up with this stuff, but here’s the deal: Every mother screws up her children one way or another. It’s up to you whether you stay that way.”
― JoAnne Tompkins, What Comes After
Likewise, Daniel, Isaac's son, is portrayed one-dimensionally as the rather cliched attractive and popular jock who is also entitled and a bully to other kids, notably Jonah (who idolizes Daniel). We discussed a couple instances of homoerotic tension between the boys that Jonah looks back on in his chapters, which unfortunately do not seem to go anywhere. How do Jonah and Daniel feel toward one another? Is Jonah's adoration of the more popular boy one-sided? How are toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia affecting how the boys relate to one another? We don't know, because this is not explored at all. Surely there must be a reason for including it, though, no? Such an exploration may have added another layer of complexity to the motivation(s) Jonah ultimately had for ending Daniel's life, which we also concluded seemed flimsy (Daniel bragging to Jonah that he raped Evangeline, when Jonah had feelings for her, intensity of such feelings aside).
“When two people love each other, it shouldn't matter whether it seems strange or wrong to anyone else”
― Joanne Tompkins, What Comes After
Evangeline, being one of the main three perspectives in the novel, is one of the strongest characters. We had a good sense of what her background, feelings, and motivations were pretty consistently throughout. The one area we discussed where we do not have a clear sense of her choices is when she sees an obstetrician for the first time and she decides she is going to keep her pregnancy. Despite being from Evangeline's point of view, she doesn't have any internal thoughts on the page where she weighs her options. She doesn't consider whether or not to have an abortion*, nor does she reckon with the consequences her decision to keep the pregnancy could have on her future life, in terms of educational and career prospects, earning potential, and so forth. Perhaps a teenager wouldn't consider those things, but absent also are any conversations with adults in the novel who might point such effects of teenage motherhood out to her. Evangeline's pregnancy narrative arc ultimately gets a happily-ever-after ending, which is sadly anomalous in the real world, particularly for someone of Evangeline's socioeconomic background.
*My further thoughts are that while acknowledging authors are free to tell the stories they want to tell, representation in art/media/culture at large matters, this novel is another instance in a long tradition of not showing a character choosing abortion and thus contributing to perhaps a broader attitude in which abortion is not normalized and therefore an unnecessary service, and a happily-ever-after ending to an unintended pregnancy in a teenager wholly unprepared for the realities of single parenthood in a society that provides no guarantees of support contributes to the erosion of reproductive rights and a false belief by too many that reproduction is just not a big deal. Is this the whole story? Obviously not. Just something to keep in mind in the years to come.
“Some hearts are stronger than others. I think every heart knows when it's had enough, don't you?”
― Joanne Tompkins, What Comes After
A large part of Evangeline's happily-ever-after is Isaac, who shelters her and ultimately takes her and her baby in at the end of the novel. Isaac's Quaker beliefs and practices were some of the most interesting and unique aspects of the novel. They also contributed at times to Isaac's more frustrating moments. Isaac deals with most of the difficult feelings he experiences in the Quaker fashion of sitting in silence. The idea in Quaker meetings to only speak and break the silence when divinely inspired to do so. The result is Isaac doesn't open up to the other people in his life, which he realizes at one of the turning points of the novel has contributed to some of the difficulties in his past relationships (in his marriage to his ex-wife, which had ended before the novel starts, for example). Isaac therefore does show some beginnings of personal growth by the end of the novel, letting Evangeline into his house and him imagining taking down the fence between his yard and Lorrie's as metaphors for him opening up emotionally.
I'm not even going to talk about Rufus (or the other animals in this book), because even though I know we're being emotionally manipulated, I still just can't. Go give your nearest dog or cat a hug.
Thank you to Miriam for hosting, and to all of the attendees for such a thought-provoking discussion!
The Verdict:
Taken from the average DCBC member ratings on Goodreads who had marked the book as read and rated at the time of this writing:
What Comes After 3.0 stars
Next Month: August 2022: Portrait of a Thief, by Grace D. Li (selected by Ashley)
