Ask Again, Yes

For all the complicated plotlines that compel the two generations of these two families, at the center of Ask Again, Yes is the compelling—and inexplicable—power of love. The attraction between Peter and Kate persists throughout the narrative. Many joy and sorrows, both for them and for their family members, stem from the inexplicable pull these two hearts feel toward each other. Their attraction begins long before either can truly feel sexual attraction and before either is interested in status or marriage. That love will sustain the two through difficult years of separation, it will be tested by the anger and resentments of both families, and it will be strained both by Peter’s dark spiral into alcoholism and financial uncertainties.

The novel’s early pages introduce the young loves of both Francis and Lena and of Brian and Anne. Both couples’ love for one another goes beyond logic or sheer yearning, and understanding. It is not like the protective love parents feel here for their children. Nor is it like the love that motivates Francis and Brian, and later Peter, as cops dedicated to helping others despite the risk and the relatively low pay. Nor is it the carnal hunger that Kate temporarily feels for Eddie Marik, or the moments in which Francis surrenders to the coaxing arms of Joan Kavanaugh, an act that only destroys his peace of mind.

At a critical moment when Peter is at his lowest, Kate—despite offers of help from her father—does not leave Peter. Her love exists beyond the clichés of love popularized in fairy tales and Hollywood rom coms. Despite her professional dedication to the rationalism of science, Kate is at a loss to explain the logic of her abiding love for Peter who, as the years pass, reveals himself to be less and less a Prince Charming. Love proves rare and enduring and ultimately inexplicable. Love demands dedication, work, and effort, but in the end, it alone lifts and sustains. 

From a genetic standpoint (and genetics determines much here), a family is a single complex unit of biological construction. Ask Again, Yes is a traditional family epic, a sprawling story of multiple generations that covers the lives and loves of two families whose fortunes are themselves tightly intertwined. The narrative anatomizes virtually all the support systems that define family: husbands and wives, in-laws, children, grandparents, and supremely, parents. At the beginning of all the trials and tragedies is the decision Francis and Anne make, as young lovers, to marry when Anne realizes she is pregnant.

At times, families stay together and protect each other. The decades of unstinting and unquestioning sacrifice Uncle George makes on behalf of Peter, who is summarily dumped on him in the aftermath of the shooting, is a prime example. Family members also, with the exception of Brian, refuse to abdicate those bonds when times inevitably become difficult. Peter attempts to stay connected with his mother until she refuses to visit with him, but when she recovers, she persists in reconnecting with her son.

At other times, that familial sense of loyalty keeps “the other” away. In the name of family, Anne smothers Peter and refuses to let him mature independently. In the name of family, Kate’s parents work for years to interdict Kate’s irrepressible love for Peter. In the name of family, Kate lies to Peter for years about Anne’s sad and lonely efforts to reconnect. Individuals within families—parents and children both—routinely invade the emotional integrity of other family members and seek to impose control or to manipulate for their own selfish ends.

Even Brian, who retreats into alcohol and then abandons his son, cannot entirely break the bond he feels with his family. When news of his death from diabetes reaches Anne and his son, we find out that he has kept for decades the old snapshots of his shattered family. His death brings the two families closer together; “Muster,” the title of Part 4, in verb form, means “to gather together.”