From Publishers Weekly
With the unadorned acuity that is his signature, novelist and poet Smith (The Palms; The Lives of the Dead) describes the ruins of family life in contemporary America. The voice is that of a son, moderate in all things (including success) and nearing middle age. Beginning in the family cemetery, where a suicidal cousin "mans the frontier of our plot," the tour winds across recognizable terrain: the family house and business, breakdowns and heart attacks, divorces and new spouses. Family members become figures in a larger drama in Smith's convincing and unforgiving?of himself, of them?voice. The cordial, hardworking father enforces his will until he becomes Lear-like: "some silly king of the air,/ useless, ordering nothing." The protective mother, recalling O'Neill's women characters, is opposed by her disdainful sons: "We didn't need some shabby partisan/ to save us from our escapades." The only long poem, "At Five in the Afternoon," dealing with the mother's insanity, much like Ginsberg's Kaddish, is the weakest in an otherwise glittering, forceful collection. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In retrospect, most families seem normal, simple: "Old age mostly took them out, and if they were bitter,/and if they raged as my grandfather did/against failure, still they had time for hot spring days,/for love, sappy or dignified, for the excellence of action." Smith is a poet and novelist, and at times the line blurs. His fourth collection of poems is a novel in many ways, recounting scenes from the life of a family?one that is not particularly unusual but in fact all too typical. Much of the volume, of course, deals with father and son, and each line on their relationship rings true; these same expectations and disappointments scar the walls in many households. Smith draws pictures that make the ordinary extraordinary, as when an argument about money recalls "love's broken shoe,/the hobble that keeps us from going far." Such fresh and memorable turns of language make these poems a pleasure. The story of family is one of promise, of hope. In search of treasure, though, Smith finds "[o]nly this journey, my rage,/disputation, horror./And this desire, like/a sudden, stupid gaiety, to lead them by the hand." Highly recommended.?Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphi.--nly this journey, my rage,/disputation, horror./And this desire, like/a sudden, stupid gaiety, to lead them by the hand." Highly recommended.?Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., PhiladelphiaCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Smith's skills as a novelist show in a powerful series of poems about one family. Beginning in the family plot of a "few sad graves," he chronicles the decay of people who love, deceive, betray, and rage. Although Smith occasionally attempts a hopeful passage, the dark surrounding images always taint it as, grippingly, the poems capture details of relationships that fascinate, dismay, and induce empathy. At the reading of an unfavorable will, an uncle has a heart attack "like a hardball in the chest." A mother slowly spins into madness while her children idly wonder whether her voices promised anything. A strict father, who never managed to escape his own father's overbearing attitude, is constantly cited as "the criminal in charge." They stick together out of unquestioned loyalty, but "in this family everyone knows everything, / you can't say a word we haven't heard before. / We're geniuses in this way, accomplished / forecasters of misery and fleshy grief." Each of these short and stunning poems secures Smith's place as one of the most original and captivating voices on the current scene. Elizabeth Gunderson

FROM THE PUBLISHER

As both poet and novelist, Charlie Smith has been hailed as one of the most original voices on the literary scene today. The New York Times calls him "prodigiously talented," and Madison Smartt Bell describes him as "a visionary." This, his fourth volume, is his most powerful collection to date. Before and After is a book of family poems. In the poet's own words: "They are a kind of affidavit. A sworn statement concerning events and consequences in the lives of a small group of bound together people. They repeat certain motifs, certain facts, as the mind does coming to grips with what haunts it. They hint of a golden time, a time lost, replaced by disaster, decay. Of being borne down by the disaster, of coming out of it, of going on." Charlie Smith captures the intimate life of one family - in all its courage, deceit, misery, madness, love, revelation, and rage - and transforms it to record the life of the American family.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

With the unadorned acuity that is his signature, novelist and poet Smith (The Palms; The Lives of the Dead) describes the ruins of family life in contemporary America. The voice is that of a son, moderate in all things (including success) and nearing middle age. Beginning in the family cemetery, where a suicidal cousin ``mans the frontier of our plot,'' the tour winds across recognizable terrain: the family house and business, breakdowns and heart attacks, divorces and new spouses. Family members become figures in a larger drama in Smith's convincing and unforgiving-of himself, of them-voice. The cordial, hardworking father enforces his will until he becomes Lear-like: ``some silly king of the air,/ useless, ordering nothing.'' The protective mother, recalling O'Neill's women characters, is opposed by her disdainful sons: ``We didn't need some shabby partisan/ to save us from our escapades.'' The only long poem, ``At Five in the Afternoon,'' dealing with the mother's insanity, much like Ginsberg's Kaddish, is the weakest in an otherwise glittering, forceful collection. (May)

Library Journal