Joanne Tompkins

After the shocking death of two teenage boys tears apart a community in the Pacific Northwest, a mysterious pregnant girl emerges out of the woods and into the lives of those same boys' families--a moving and hopeful novel about forgiveness and human connection. In misty, coastal Washington State, Isaac lives alone with his dog, grieving the recent death of his teenage son, Daniel. Next door, Lorrie, a working single mother, struggles with a heinous act committed by her own teenage son. Separated by only a silvery stretch of trees, the two parents are emotionally stranded, isolated by their great losses--until an unfamiliar sixteen-year-old girl shows up, bridges the gap, and changes everything. Evangeline's arrival at first feels like a blessing, but she is also clearly hiding something. When Isaac, who has retreated into his Quaker faith, isn't equipped to handle her alone, Lorrie forges her own relationship with the girl. Soon all three characters are forced to examine what really happened in their overlapping pasts, and what it all possibly means for a shared future. With a propulsive mystery at its core, What Comes After offers an unforgettable story of loss and anger, but also of kindness and hope, courage and forgiveness. It is a deeply moving account of strangers and friends not only helping each other forward after tragedy, but inspiring a new kind of family.

A Novel

What Comes After

Kylie Robinson

Abigail F

But you, because of that tiny bit of love in you, you don't know what you're seeing. That's what messes you up. The love. You can't see right with that in rour heart. Or maybe you're the only one who can see anything at a. Either way, you're fucked.

Ugly edges, But that was a given wasn't it? If anywhere there existed something pure she'd never found it.

Humans are forever picking their heroes and villains in waves of reversing fashion… we name our villains and then treat them in such a way that they prove us prophets.

She and I shared an ignorance of each other. That is what I missed when she went out, the relief of another's presence without the false notion that I was known.

Not the God who delighted in this Divine torment, this nagging, insistent whisper: I have left you with nothing, but you are alive, alive, alive. 

You are alive. You must come to grips with that.

I felt the world's suffering as a vast and permanent expanse, an ocean that stormed and settled, that could on a moment’s whim sweep anyone it chose to its depths.

It's strange how you discover whats been hiding in you all along.

Evil is not a person. It's not a political group either. Or a religion like some people think. Evil is a force. Like gravity. It acts on all of us. We're all vulnerable to it.

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