A quick read- for me, a pleasant interlude between my Bookclub books. It was also interesting for me because I'm involved with community theatre and I enjoyed the descriptions of the process of developing a play. However, the main character seemed to recover a bit too quickly from the loss of his spouse to seem true to life.

After Annie is a novel about Herbie who loses his wife, Annie. Annie's death is difficult for Herbie because despite his various life choices as an actor, he is totally devoted to her. One night after leaving the hospital Annie is in, Herbie goes to a nearby bar and flirts with Olive, the bartender, as he nurses his dread about Annie's impending death with vodka. Herbie brings Olive to the hospital to meet Annie and they become quick friends. After Annie's death, Herbie helps Olive break into the acting business.

This was a very easy to read book and it has enough, for lack of a better work "shocking" material about the life of two actors to make it interesting. However, by the end of the book, I asked myself why I continued reading and how it could have ended better. Overall, I thought the book was terribly predictable, anticlimactic and not nearly as funny as the jacket cover suggested. ( )