One night after work, Louisa drinks a lot of wine and climbs up onto her apartment building’s roof,

while
thinking about her grief over Will’s death.

She is startled by a girl’s voice causing her to stumble.

She fall two stories down her building.

Paramedics take Louisa to the hospital and her family comes to visit her.

When she is discharged from the hospital, Louisa returns to her hometown of Stortfold to live with her
family.

Once she is feeling better she decides to move back to London and her family agrees on the condition
that she attends grief counselling sessions.

After a counselling session at the Moving On Circle, Louisa bumps into Sam, one of the paramedics who
saved her life after she fell from the roof, and they start dating.

Sam is there to pick up his nephew Jake, but Louisa mistakenly assume that Sam is Jake’s father.

In the counseling sessions, Jake speaks about his father engaging in a series of casual sexual affairs as a
result of his grief over Jake’s mother’s death.

This leads Louisa to mistakenly think of Sam as a womanizer.

One night at her flat, Louisa is visited by a teenage girl named Lily Houghton-Miller who claims to be Will
Traynor’s daughter.

Louisa visits Lily’s family and discovers that her mother, Tanya, never told Will that he had a daughter.

After seeing how selfish and unkind Lily’s mother is, Louisa invites Lily to stay with her for a while.

Louisa makes attempts to introduce Lily to Will’s family while Lily’s behaviour becomes increasingly
erratic.

Lily arrives drunk in the middle of the night, borrows items of clothing with sentimental value from
Louisa without asking.

She invites strangers back to the flat for a party without Louisa’s permission.

When Louisa discovers that her grandmother’s jewelry has been stolen, she kicks Lily out of the flat.

Meanwhile, Louisa confronts Sam about his womanizing behaviour

She discovers that he is Jake’s uncle, not the man who Jake talks about in the counselling sessions.

After this misunderstanding is cleared up, their relationship becomes more serious.

Louisa worries that she is betraying Will.

Louisa discovers that Lily has planted a garden for her on the roof of the building.

Feeling guilty about their argument, Louisa visits Lily’s family home in order to apologize.

She then discover that Lily has gone missing.

Lily is being blackmailed over a sexually explicit photograph.

With Sam’s help, Louisa finds Lily and she explains about the blackmail.

Sam and Louisa help Lily by threatening the man who is blackmailing her.

They destroyed the phone that has the only copy of the photograph on it.

Louisa is offered a job in New York but she turns it down in order to take care of Lily.

Shortly afterwards, Will’s mother, Mrs. Traynor, enrolls Lily in a new boarding school.

Lily moves out of Louisa’s flat.

Sam is shot in a gang-related incident in London.

The prospect of his death makes Louisa realize how much she loves him.

She is offered another job in New York that she plans to turn down in order to be with Sam, but Sam
tells her that she has to take the job and that they can be in a long-distance relationship.

In the final chapter, Louisa catches a flight to New York to begin her new life.

You never know what will happen when you fall from a great height. Will’s death was a
symbolic fall from a great height that Louisa must struggle to recover from as she recovers
from her physical fall. The phrase also reflects the fact that Louisa would not have met Sam
if she had not fallen.

Through the device of the Moving On Circle, the author explores different facets of
bereavement giving a wider and more in-depth view of the nature of grief than could be
communicated from the character of Louisa alone. The grief of the other characters at the
Moving On Circle is also used as a mirror for what’s going on in Louisa’s own life. Initially, it
appears as if Jake’s discussion of his dad’s sexual behavior in response to the grief he feels
over the death of his mum is included in the novel in order to give further characterization
to Sam. The use of point of view serves to narrow the perspective of the reader, leading the
reader to perceive things the same way that Louisa perceives them, often without
questioning what is really going on. The most significant instance of Louisa’s flawed point of
view having an impact on the reader’s understanding of events is in the interpretation of
Sam’s relationship to Jake.
London is the main location of the novel.

his was an awesome story with many unexpected twists and turns. I love the character of Lou and
how she expresses her feelings about the loss of Will. I can connect because I just loss my husband
a year ago. Her hesitation with moving on and still honoring the memory of your loved one.

The theme of After You is the difficulty of moving on after bereavement. Louisa,
who was in love with Will, feels that their brief time together should have taught her
something that would enable her to live a full, creative, wonderful life as a memorial
to him. Instead, she is just keeping her head above water.

Deft adjective
Neatly skillful and quick in one's movements
Nearly every piece here is deft, intelligent and imaginative.
Blather verb
talk long-windedly without making very much sense
He'll just blather about the subject for hours once he gets started.
Conduit noun
A channel for conveying water or other fluid
Social media has replaced mail as a conduit of communicating with family and
friends.
Slovenly adj
Messy, unclean or careless
The dinner was served in a slovenly manner.

Galumphing adj
Moving gracelessly and heavily
He went galumphing back.

Louisa Clark ( Lou) - is the central character/protagonist.

Lily Houghton-Miller - Will's daughter

Sam - one of the ambulance drivers that helped save Louisa’s life.

Tanya - Lily Houghton-Miller’s mother

Camilla Traynor Camilla is Will’s mother,
Stephen Traynor Stephen is Will’s father.