Mamamia Bookclub: After The Fall

I loved this month’s bookclub book, After the Fall. Kylie Ladd is a gifted writer who knows how to weave the complexity of relationships into a beautifully crafted story.  But instead of giving my detailed review, I’m going to hand over to Lifestyled’s Paula Joye and soon-to-be-author-herself Kerri Sackville.

Paula writes

I had been married three years when I fell in love. Fell, collapsed, stepped off the kerb and found nothing but air. Oh, I already loved my husband of course, but this was different. That had been a decision; this was out of my control, an impulse as difficult to resist as gravity….Kylie Ladd’s After The Fall starts at this gripping pace and doesn’t let up until the very final page. It’s edge of your seat stuff as four people’s lives spiral out of control.

I find books about infidelity fascinating. Compulsive reading. Possibly because they show a side of human behavior that is often so misrepresented. And has so many shades of grey. After The Fall explores all those shades and poses lots of questions. Would you cheat? Would you leave if you were cheated on? Can you fall in love with more than one person? Can you be in love with two people at a time? Can trust be rebuilt? Is it ever really there? Can you forgive? Can you forget? And is there an Ever After?

Kylie Ladd has done a superb job in raising these issues chapter by chapter and makes you turn them over in your head as you follow the characters journey and decisions. The protagonists are friends, which makes the affair all the more explosive but also helps paint the intimacy, intensity, agony and ecstasy of the story.

I enjoyed After The Fall immensely although it left me feeling a little bit sad. But I think that is what Kylie wanted to achieve? Perhaps she’s reminding all of us that when it comes to love you don’t know what is around the corner. Or on the other side.

Kerri writes

A year ago, hanging around on Twitter, I received a reply from a woman called Kylie Ladd. The name sounded familiar, but I did a Google search to check it out. And I was right. It was her! The author of ‘After The Fall’ – one of my favourite Australian novels of all time. I was thrilled to meet Kylie, and it was the beginning of a lasting friendship.

I loved ‘After The Fall’. I absolutely devoured it. For a start, I found the subject matter to be utterly fascinating. Who hasn’t been intrigued by infidelity? How do two people fall fervently in love with each other, despite being contentedly married to others? And what is the effect on their primary relationships?

‘After The Fall’ poignantly details the ‘fall’ into an affair – the intoxication and growing obsession as initial flirtation develops into all-consuming love. Kylie’s writing is so beautifully descriptive, capturing emotions and moments in a few delicious phrases. And her characters are so real, so vividly drawn in all their complexities, that re-reading the novel seemed to be a re-visiting of old friends.

The story is told from the point of view of all four main characters, and a couple of ring-ins. So fully do we understand their motivations and desires that we feel sympathy for each –the lovers, Kate and Luke, and their spouses Cory and Cressida. And whilst the devastation of both betrayed partners is tangible, the impact of the affair on each marriage is very different, with one couple forging a path back together, and the other torn forever apart.

Kylie is a practicing neuropsychologist, and her insight into human beings and their relationships informs every page of the narrative. The book shatters the myths that only unhappily married people cheat on their partners, and that there is only one way to respond to infidelity, and I found it riveting reading.

Kylie’s next novel, about the impact of a man’s death on his group of friends, is out in June, and I cannot wait.

Here are some bookclub questions that Kylie prepared earlier.

1. Which of the four main characters do you most identify with? Which do you find the most sympathetic? Why?
2. Was Kate right to have given Luke an ultimatum? What do you think would have happened if she hadn’t?
3. Kate says, “Situations don’t arise; you create them. Luke must have told me he loved me a thousand times in our seven months together, must have risked his marriage at least half as many to meet me or call or make contact somehow. Why, then, choose that marriage?” Why do you think Luke made the decision he did? And why is it that Luke’s proposed compromise—to stay with their spouses but continue to see each other—satisfies him, but not Kate?
4. Cary and Cressida respond very differently to the discovery of their respective spouse’s infidelity: Cary decides to put it behind them and move on, while Cress is unable to forgive or forget, and moves out. Why do you think each reacts the way they do? Do you believe a marriage can survive infidelity?
5. Were you satisfied with the ending of After The Fall? Did it finish the way you expected it to? Do you believe that the characters will be able to put the events of the novel behind them?

Next year, our bookclub as it’s been for the last 6 months will be no longer. Instead, we are going to publish regular book reviews by MM readers here and invite you to come any time and discuss them and whatever else you’re reading. Meanwhile, Kylie Ladd is going to pop in and answer any questions or comments you have about her terrific book. Go hard.

If you haven’t bought the book buy it here now!  And watch out for Kylie’s next book. Losing Rory which is scheduled for release in 2011. You can follow Kylie on Twitter here and visit her website here.