After This by Alice McDermott

I finished reading After This by American author Alice McDermott last night before bed. I did not like this novel as much as I did McDermott's Charming Billy, which I read a month or so ago. That said, After This is the story of Mary and John Keane: their meeting, marriage and four children. McDermott writes beautiful prose - I often found myself rereading sentences, I found them so gorgeous - and these are wonderful characters. And despite the domestic, ordinary feel of the story it is never boring. I guess my problem with it was the ending. The storyline felt a bit rushed near the end to me, things were wrapped up too quickly, perhaps a wee bit unsatisfactorily. Also what was described on the back jacket as a "stunning transgression" committed by their youngest daughter did not feel all that stunning, or much of a transgression, to me. Alice McDermott is definitely a writer I am interested in however, and I look forward to reading her other novels.