After : A Novel

After is the story of an intense affair that takes place over a day and a night. It has been a year since the woman's husband was murdered by Islamic extremists. Now she decides to take a lover, a Muslim man. Telling their story from both points of view, Claire Tristram describes their passion and their tenderness, their shifting desires and hesitations, and the unexpected escalation of their lovemaking into terrifying violence.

“After is as disturbing, challenging, and subversive a debut novel as I have read in many years. Here's a very cunning, fearless writer, full of promise and surprise.” —Jim Crace

“An intriguingly risky premise [and] an exploration of the ways in which lovers objectify one another, then turn tender in the most confusing circumstances...An appealing Mamet-like mystery.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Somewhere, in another language, there exists a word to express the fog surrounding survivors. The word would have to convey the sense of damage and disbelief when, despite death, people continue to talk on the phone, eat, and drive their cars to work. Claire Tristram's new novel, After, inhabits the syllables of this word.” —Village Voice Literary Supplement

“A balanced, taut narrative...truly chilling suspense.” —Entertainment Weekly

“What emerges are questions of identity and what we think ourselves capable of. What we're left with is the notion that grief and hate can overtake us, no matter who we think we are.” —USA Today