Aftermath Book Summary
Hortense Malovich
A historical fiction, The Aftermath is set in Hamburg, Germany after the end of World War II. The novel tells the story of a British colonel, Lewis Morgan, who is sent to Hamburg to oversee the rebuilding of the city and the de-Nazification of its inhabitants. Through his experiences and interactions with the local population, the novel explores themes of guilt, redemption, and the aftermath of war.
As the story begins, Lewis and his wife, Rachael, arrive in Hamburg and are assigned to live in a requisitioned house that they will share with a German widow, Katherine, and her teenage daughter, Freda. The city is in ruins, having been heavily bombed during the war, and the Morgans find themselves in a difficult and hostile environment. Rachael struggles to adjust to the harsh realities of life in post-war Hamburg, while Lewis throws himself into his work as a liaison officer between the British and German authorities.
As Lewis begins to work on rebuilding the city, he is haunted by the memory of a tragic accident that occurred while he was serving in India. The accident, which resulted in the deaths of several Indian soldiers, has left him wracked with guilt and remorse. His feelings of responsibility and remorse are intensified as he confronts the destruction and suffering caused by the war in Hamburg. He also becomes increasingly aware of the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the war and the guilt and moral ambiguities of his actions as an officer in the British Army.
Meanwhile, Lewis begins to form a relationship with Katherine, which serves as a further exploration of guilt, responsibility, and forgiveness. Katherine, who lost her husband in the war, also grapples with both the aftermath of the war and her feelings of guilt. She is initially resentful of the British, but she and Lewis begin to form a bond as they share their experiences and try to rebuild their lives.
The novel also delves into the political and social issues of the time, as the Morgans and Katherine must navigate the complex power dynamics of post-war Hamburg. There is tension between the British occupying forces and the German population and between those Germans who were complicit with the Nazi regime and those who were not. The novel portrays the moral complexities of dealing with those who were involved in the Nazi regime or complicit in its crimes and how to rebuild a society that has been so deeply divided by the war.
As the novel progresses, the story explores how individuals, families, and society as a whole try to come to terms with the trauma of war and how to move forward. The novel deals with a variety of issues such as refugees' struggles, and the impact of physical and emotional trauma. It also deals with the struggle of finding meaning in life after the end of a devastating conflict.
As the novel draws to a close, Lewis comes to realize that the war is not over for the people of Hamburg and that the process of rebuilding is ongoing. He also comes to understand that true redemption is not about absolution, but about bearing witness to the truth and taking responsibility for one's actions. He also starts to question what's the real difference between the perpetrators and the victims and the morality of the choices made during the war.
The Aftermath is a well-written and emotionally powerful novel that explores the complexities of war and its aftermath. Through its well-crafted characters and intricate storyline, it delves into the emotional, moral, and political issues arising from the end of a devastating conflict. The author's richly detailed descriptions of the war-torn city and the struggles of the characters give the reader a sense of the scale of the destruction and the enormity of the task of rebuilding, both physically and emotionally.
The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis tohelp you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:
- Summary
- Chapters
- Important People
- Objects/Places
- Themes
- Styles
- Quotes
In this nonfiction work, Leslie Jamison combines personal memoir, cultural history, and literary analysis to capture the contradictions and complexities of addiction. She subverts the traditional recovery memoir by giving us a tapestry of recovery stories and framing her story alongside other stories. Jamison interweaves her own story of drinking in Iowa City with the stories of famous writers who drank before her: Raymond Carver, John Berryman, Denis Johnson, Jean Rhys, and David Foster Wallace, to name a few. She also explores the deeper political complexities at work in America's cultural narrative of addiction, from Billie Holiday, who died handcuffed to a hospital bed, to Seneca House, a little ramshackle fishing hostel that was converted into an all-volunteer run rehabilitation center on the banks of the Potomac in the seventies, to the tale of a young woman named Marcia Powell who was an addict who died from heat exhaustion when she was being held prisoner in a holding cage in an Arizona desert.
At the same time, she analyzes other authors' writings and moments in history related to addiction, Jamison takes us on her own journey as a young woman hiding her secret of alcoholism. She transports us to Harvard, where she first blacked out as an undergraduate while attending a party for the school's literary magazine. Then we follow her to Iowa City, where she pursued Fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and followed along the footsteps of the mythical, white male writers who had come before her. From there she goes to Nicaragua, where she drinks and sleeps around and comes to realize the extent of her dependence on alcohol. After that, she moves in with her ailing grandma, her brother, and his wife, and begins her first novel, The Gin Closet, about a young woman and her reclusive, alcoholic aunt.
Jamison then pursues her doctoral degree at Yale, where she falls in love with a handsome, charming poet named Dave. When he gets accepted into the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she finds herself back in the land of drunk, magical mythos, drinking wildly again. However, to her disappointment, Dave barely drinks. Jamison starts moderating her alcoholic intake around Dave. Finally, after months of hiding, she comes clean to him and starts attending AA meetings. It is not until they move back to New Haven and Jamison begins her second period of sobriety that she is able to take AA seriously, and commit to the process of healing.
Through the help of AA, Jamison comes to realize that alcohol was never about power. On the contrary, it made her feel powerless. With the help of her new friends in AA, she starts to practice self-compassion and recognize some of the things in her life she was using alcohol to escape from. Jamison gradually switches her writing focus from fiction to reportage. She starts interviewing people with lives far different from her own. She travels across the country visiting people and hearing their stories. By immersing herself in the lives of others, Jamison comes to realize the joys possible in a sober existence. She is also more honest with herself. Even though she loves Dave, she knows it is time to move on. He is not there for her emotionally in the way she needs. It is time to move on to the next phase of her life see what the world has in store for her. She is through with hiding and the fantasy of a drunken, writerly life that is nothing more than an escape. She is ready to let go, accept the discomforts and joys of life on its own terms, and face the unknown.
Jane Ciabattari: How have your life and work been going in the post-quarantine world? How have the years of pandemic and turmoil affected the writing, editing, and launch of your new novel, Night Watch?
JC: What drew you to write about characters immersed in the Civil War and its aftermath in West Virginia, your home state, with a focus on brain injury, trauma from sexual abuse, and the healing theories of the Quaker physician Thomas Story Kirkbride, who created the philosophy behind the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum?
JC: You begin Night Watch in 1874, as a mute mother and her daughter, who pretends to be her servant, arrive at the asylum in Weston, Virginia, and are welcomed by Night Watch and Mrs. Bowman. What research did you do to be able to re-create this asylum for 250 women and men with multiple activities, its chief physician, Dr. Thomas Story, and complex staff, including the Hospital Cook, Mrs. Hexum, with her staff and the group of children she nurtures?
JC: In 1874 Eliza, now known as Miss Janet, is mute, admitted to the asylum. How were you able to render her trauma so powerfully through the flashback scenes leading up to the asylum days?
JAP: Dearbhla is not based on a real character, but on what is known about poor Irish whites, illiterate for generations, who migrated with nothing and served long terms as indentured manual labor. The Irish in the South, particularly, were judged by the rampant alcoholism of the men, who could not find work in economies based on slavery, many of whom gave up, leaving their women and children to lives of bitter poverty.
Yet the timeless nuances of human identity pull in an opposite direction, the direction of whoever and whatever stands as night watch, acting to protect and sustain despite chaos, to gather up, to survive to a time when all of us can finally say our names.
However, this discussion was just theoretical until the Ninth Circuit case of F.B.T. Productions, LLC, et al. v. Aftermath Records, etc., et al.,2 in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held, as a matter of law, that digital downloads and mastertones are licenses, and that they are therefore subject to the 50 percent license fee rather than a much smaller percentage royalty. F.B.T. Productions, LLC is a production company that is owned by Mark Bass, Jeff Bass, and their manager, Joel Martin. In 1995, F.B.T. signed an artist named Marshal B. Mathers III to an Exclusive Artist Recording Agreement. Mathers is professionally known as Eminem. According to Aftermath, F.B.T. was entirely unsuccessful in its attempts to market and package Eminem, with its first Eminem album selling only 30 copies.3
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