After the Rain

After the Rain Summary | Plot Summary

Fifteen-year-old Rachel Cooper helps to care for her irascible grandfather during his final illness and endures his death. She learns about the nature of relationships, independence, love, and loss in this sensitive coming-of-age novel.

Every Sunday, Rachel, her mom, Shirley, and her dad, Manny, visit Izzy, her grandfather. Angry, sharp-tongued and judgmental, Izzy frightens Rachel. Izzy has disowned his actor son, Lenny, and angered Rachel's footloose brother Jeremy. He seems bent on alienating the rest of the family. Despite a recent case of stomach flu, Izzy is apparently healthy, walking 4 miles each day and bragging about his strength and stamina as a youthful stonemason. Rachel dreads the visits to her grandfather every Sunday, but she enjoys preparing a big dinner in his kitchen with her mother, joking and bumping into each other in the small apartment kitchen. This is strange, since Rachel avoids cooking with her mother at home.

Grandpa Izzy is diagnosed with asbestosis, also called mesothelioma, a terminal cancer caused by handling asbestos. The "mean old man" clings to his independence and refuses to live with Rachel's family. Reluctantly at first, Rachel begins to help care for the prickly codger. When Izzy falls during his daily walk, Rachel volunteers to accompany him. He's so unpleasant that each day Rachel promises herself she won't walk with Izzy again, but by putting aside her own wants and desires, Rachel gradually begins to empathize with Izzy. As Rachel matures, she puts the old man's needs before her own. Although he was remote and angry at first, Grandpa Izzy and Rachel eventually develop a relationship that is close and tender but never easy.

When Grandpa Izzy inevitably dies, Rachel has to confront her feelings of loss, as well as regret for all the years Izzy wasted squabbling with the family. She learns much about herself, her family, the importance of understanding and forgiveness, and the nature of immortality.