Review of 'After Anne' by Logan Steiner
Release date: May 30th, 2023
Publisher: Willian Morrow (HarperCollins)
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REVIEW
Logan Steiner’s divinely impressive debut novel got inside my soul like a rose with its thorns and pricked my heart over and over as it made me feel Lucy Maud Montgomery’s deep and distressing anguish. The Prince Edward Island author of the famous Anne of Green Gables inspired many readers and writers, including myself with her vivid descriptions, quirky characters and insightful clever phrases. I have not only read her stories, poems and journals and received much joy and food for thought from them but I have also lingered on the passages in After Anne that made me aware of this woman’s pain and suffering.
Logan Steiner has done incredibly well weaving Maud and her words together into a tremendous cohesive work to give us an authentic feel of what life may have been like for this gifted woman. Anne became the voice of hope, dreams and advice when Maud needed it. Yes, her own character Anne of Green Gables kept whispering in her ear like a conscience, a guide, a reminder of the good things she loved. Including her walks in the forest—her cathedral of faith—where she felt closest to God. And I can relate to that. Sadly, when Maud moved away from her beloved island— her soul faltered, her courage shrivelled and her strength faded as she was now cut off from her life source. Even still, she revisited those areas of passion in her writing. In many ways it was her great escape—and she was always trying to get back there where her imagination knew kindred spirits existed, where relationships played out, where dreams were exercised and deep desires achieved—replacing the failures and emptiness of real life.
The seed of curiosity that moves with force through After Anne is the mystery of why Maud committed suicide. For she had stated in her younger years that it would not be something she’d choose. Logan explores the question: what would drive her to that end? After reading the novel, it is clear to see how it could happen.
After Anne made me think deeply. I knew that below the surface of Maud’s wit and wonder, was another story. Her life had been a difficult one. Losing her mother at twenty one months, and then being denied her father’s presence when he moved away to the prairies and remarried, would have affected her young mind. And on top of that, later in life she lost a child upon birth and her dearest ‘bosom’ friend to illness and then her husband to his depression. The latter particularly was a heavy burden to bear. As Logan reveals, Ewan’s battle with faith and himself had a monumental effect on her. It left deep marks in her own psyche for in many ways his mental disease infected her: especially once she succumbed to his medication.
As the trials and doubts magnified, the roller coaster of self-medicating skyrocketed. In many ways it became balm for her troubled soul—a way to feel disappointments less. It is easy to understand how hard it was for her to live with a severely depressed person. Positivity buoys the soul but negativity drags it down—even causes one to drown in its mirky dire depths. Despair is a state of mind—a heart emptied of hope.
Eventually, the voice of destruction proved louder as the medication altered Maud’s perceptions. Logan paints a realistic picture of how emotional sedation causes a person to not care anymore—about anything. And back then, they were using some powerful drugs to still the mind.
There are a number of chapters devoted to Maud’s destruction of her own writing documents. She had a fascination with fire and burning letters, journal notes, etc. The power it gave her may have been the attraction since she had little control over life. Her sense of responsibility to her grandmother and then to her husband, meant they were a silent and not so silence force behind her decision making.
Her husband, Ewan, was clearly not the best match for her. In After Anne, there is another man shown to be better suited who was not only physically attractive to her but who offered mental stimulation. Maud had an active mind that was sharp, imaginative, inquisitive and captivated by the natural world. She hungered for another to share the things she loved. Her husband did not and his ordinariness comes through in many passages of this novel and the realisation of it hits Maud hard at one point. Her own soul craved a kindred spirit and her lack of it in her marriage created a huge hole in her life that became an abyss. I felt such sadness for her. Some ask why did she marry him? Love is blind. A positive person, a writer, a dreamer might see more than is there for their mind may fill in the missing pieces with their own strengths. It is easy to do. And then there is duty. A very persistent mindset in Maud’s day that may have played upon her moral character.
Another area explored in this novel is one of the married female writer. Women authors may question whether their writing takes time away from their family. Yes, there are sacrifices and yes, marriage and children will compete with the Muse but it can be done. Maud, sadly began to wonder if she failed in this area and blamed herself when one of her children went awry. Chester had issues but should a mother blame herself for her children’s failures? Sometimes all the love and attention in the world is not enough. And children fail on their own terms. I believe even with all the best care possible, sometimes things can go wrong. The old nature versus nurture debate is never so cut and dry. Everyone will make mistakes but what we do with those mistakes makes all the difference. Do we learn and move forward or fall back into a circular destructive pattern?
And then the theme and importance of friendship present in Anne of Green Gables is also highlighted in After Anne. Especially in dealing with the errors we all will make on our journeys through life. A mistake is just a mistake, and a bosom friend would never blame you for it. Or else she isn’t much of a bosom friend. Did Maud make some mistakes in her life? Did she have a bosom friend who understood her and loved her warts and all? Maud found her intimate friend in cousin Frede—a kindred spirit that she was able to confide in without worry of what her friend would think. Of course, there were moments of doubt but Maud realised she was trying to hide from her own mistakes and that her friend would never judge her.
These are just a small number of issues expressed in this novel. It is filled with many nuggets of truth and wisdom. Maud’s life, her friendships, her imaginative realm as a writer and her married life are explored beautifully, thoughtfully and with reverence.
This is a story, with fact intertwined with fiction. A highly imagined account of the spaces between that have been a mystery. It is based on a portion of Maud’s life, her marriage and her end and what may have driven her to suicide. Maud was an author who edited and re-edited her personal journals like her novels to protect, preserve or please herself. After Anne delves into the mind, actions and words of a woman who gave so much joy to others but whose own life was rife with sorrow. Fire was part of her editing process. Did it give her the liberty she desired? We don’t know. But Logan fills in the might-have-been and the maybes. And her use of Maud’s thirty-third birthday is a genius move into the past: a focal point to keep going back to. There is hope that Maud in her last hours may have remembered this special day. Logan Steiner states that the birthday event is her own invention but I think it is a clever and insightful one that draws us back over and over to a possible moment in time of Maud’s happiness.
This novel After Anne is an outstanding delivery and I highly recommend it for so many reasons. It will break your heart, make you smile and remind you what is important in life. It is a must read if you are an Anne of Green Gables fan. Even though it paints a possible picture of reality that bears much sadness and contrast to the author’s books, it does not take away from the great gift this author had: to inspire generations of readers who continue to escape into a world where anything is possible, where natural beauty is celebrated, where the unexpected happens and where the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Love, family, hopes and dreams are at the core of Maud’s novels and demonstrated exquisitely in After Anne. 5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Many thanks to the author and her publisher for a review copy.
Note: I’ve done a written interview with Logan on her new novel so follow this link!
