Hal Costigan is the kind of man people envy. A candidate for Congress, he has a loving wife, a supportive family, a devoted mother. He is a man on the rise--until he is caught in an affair with a high-school girl and commits suicide, leaving a family whose futures are irrevocably changed by his act. His mother, sister, brother, and lover are haunted by his memory and cannot find consolation in each other. In Afterwards , Gina Berriault charts the corrosive power of guilt and loneliness and shows us how one terrible act can bind and possess a family forever. Hal O. Costigan, candidate for Congress, is the kind of man people envy. He has a loving wife, a supportive family, a devoted mother. Friendly, intelligent, successful, he is a man on the rise--until he is caught in an affair with a high school girl and commits suicide. On election day the reporters have forgotten him, and the radio doesnt mention his name. Around Hals hometown, however, a handful of people continue lives that will be forever haunted by his memory. Mother, sister, brother, lover--their futures all irrevocably changed by his death--cannot find consolation in each other and seek it elsewhere.