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Denise Pattiz Bogard
“The stuff of terrific fiction is mishap — the altering of everything you thought you could believe in — over the course of one brutal instant. In this shattering novel, a generous impulse gone terribly wrong sends two families spiraling down into despair and facing a steep climb back to higher ground. Denise Bogard has written her heart out on this story.”
- After Elise has been named by the St. Louis Post Dispatch (December 16, 2018) as one of the 2018 “St. Louis and Missouri-connected books of particular appeal” and a recommended gift book
- It is out now from Ardent Writers Press and is available from Amazon in print, ebook and audiobook editions.
- After Elise was named a finalist in the 2017 Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Contest, novel-in-progress category.
Imagine this: You are a married mother of two, driving to the grocery store in a storm, changing the radio station, answering your cell phone, when you notice a woman stranded by the side of the road and, on impulse, decide to pull over….
Teri Berger’s car skids in the rain, killing twenty-year-old Elise and leaving Teri reeling with guilt and the rest of her family in disarray as they struggle to adjust to this new reality. Already strained family relationships are tested, and Teri’s marriage suffers, her son withdraws, and her daughter faces a heartbreaking decision.
AFTER ELISE confronts readers with the most everyday tragedy—an accident that could happen to anyone—and its effects, changing the lives forever of everyone involved.
“How well do we know ourselves? Denise Pattiz Bogard’s powerful novel, After Elise, raises this question and examines one family to answer it. Most of us float through our daily lives, trying to do what needs to be done. But sometimes our lives fly off the track, and a single error comes to haunt everything, with devastating consequences. Most of the novel is focused on Teri Berger and her interaction with her husband, children, friends and acquaintances. A series of small errors culminate in a catastrophe, which tests Teri to the limit. With the foundation of her life shaken, she is challenged to survive. Denise Bogard succeeds in making her portrayal of Teri and her family entirely authentic, as Teri struggles to face her assumptions. Because Bogard focuses so closely on Teri, the reader struggles with her, making this a fine novel about moral choices that can’t be escaped.”
Howard Schwartz, author of The Library of Dreams
Additional Testimonials and Reviews
"A lifelong St. Louisan, Bogard provides just enough local color to make her new book seem especially close to the bone."
“Denise has never stopped writing. Because we have kept in touch since her graduation, I know of her hard work and determination, her writing draft after draft, her commitment to getting it right. Thus, her success is not surprising to me and is well deserved. She has earned it.”
"As she showed in The Middle Step, Bogard is adept at catching subtle changes in the dynamics of relationships among her characters and their spouses, children and friends. In fact, the story in “After Elise” is so vividly rendered that Bogard has had to make it clear that it is indeed a work of fiction: She was not involved in a life-changing fatal accident that turned her life upside down."
