This novel tackles how we care for each other. Antonia, the main character, is a recently retired professor of English originally from the Dominican Republic. Just as she retired, her husband died of a heart attack, which means that her retirement has turned into a time of mourning. Antonia lives and secludes herself in her house in the Vermont (I believe) countryside. She starts getting pulled back into the world when a young undocumented Mexican immigrant who works at the dairy farm next door starts working for her to do some repairs around the house. Antonia, as a Latina immigrant herself, has some understanding of this young man's culture and how he relates to both her and his other employer with the deference that springs from being utterly dependent upon them both for his safety and sanctuary.

Antonia has four sisters and all the sisters squabble with each other, care for each other deeply, and have fallen into expected roles. Antonia herself has been given a church bells ring tone by each of her sisters because she is a rule follower. Antonia has had career success and had let her doctor husband be the "heart" of their marriage while she was the "head", the worrier, the cynic. Her sisters feel that she can be judgmental. When faced with another person's problem, Antonia tends to pull from her vast store of literature and make some sort of quote that, while it applies to the situation at hand, isn't always the useful response that her family needs.

Two things ramp up the plot. First, her young immigrant friend asks to use her phone to call his girlfriend. It turns out that this girl is heading from Mexico to him but they have run afoul of the coyotes who have been transporting her. Second, Antonia's sister goes missing. This sister has shown quite a few signs of being bipolar but the sister also hasn't wanted medication for this issue and so she has become more and more impulsive and her judgement has become more and more impaired. Antonia and her other three sisters end up on a hunt for her across the entire eastern seaboard.

Antonia keeps telling herself that she doesn't want to get involved in any of this- all of these people can take care of their problems themselves. But she's really bad at actually standing her ground in this and despite her best intentions her life becomes more linked to all of these people in need.

The author does a great job of unspooling how people relate to each other through culture and class. This is not a novel about illegal immigration, but that topic is addressed. This isn't a book just about grief, although that's addressed too. It also pulls in perceptions and prejudice, family dynamics. It's a short novel for all of that, and I really enjoyed reading it. This could end up being a great book club book.

2.75 stars

There are so many powerful themes in this book: death, grief, loss, immigration, teen pregnancy, mental illness, and more. Despite the fact that these topics are presented in such a small space - less than 300 pages - they feel wildly disjointed. It's hard to get a sense of place, completion, or development.

I am really interested in Alvarez's attempt at uncovering what happens to a person at this stage of life: retirement and loss of a spouse. But, I feel really worried if this is what lies ahead. The m.c.'s identity becomes so dependent upon the people around her. I found it odd that as she grows older and gains more independence in some critical ways (widowed versus married, retired versus employed), her identity somehow becomes more nebulous instead of increasingly stable.

I have really enjoyed many of Alvarez's works, but this presented an unexpected struggle.

This OK, not great. Interesting writing style that worked much, but not all of the time. The characters aren't likeable much of the time, and this may be more a female read (which I often like), which may be why I didn't click with this. The author has obvious talent so I may have to circle back to some of her other work.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

Antonia Vega: recently and painfully widowed, recently retired Professor of English, of Dominican descent, the second of four sisters with wildly divergent but equally strong personalities. While trying to focus on her Afterlife — “No longer a teacher at the college, no longer volunteering and serving on a half dozen boards, no longer in the thick of the writing whirl — she has withdrawn from every narrative, including the ones she makes up for sale. Who am I? the plaintive cry.” — she is reluctantly drawn into the here and now.

Her eldest sister is behaving erratically and is now missing; a pregnant, illegal, Mexican teenager has shown up at her doorstep and needs help; the local Vermont dairy industry is dependent on illegal labor but with ICE encroaching, her translation and leadership skills are in demand. People keep expecting her to rise to the occasions, and she really doesn’t want to.

The writing is absolutely beautiful, the focus internal. The book doesn’t follow a typical narrative arc — while all of the plot lines progress, the real story is Antonia — how she copes and how she struggles with decisions: what is the right thing to do? who is most important? how does she feel about the decisions she is forced to make? I love that Antonia herself defies stereotype, and in fact, spends a great deal of time considering her own stereotypes — both positive and negative — of herself and those around her. Examples:

“Embodied in a man who could so easily fall into the stereotype where Antonia and friends often banish the Jesus folks, the political right-wingers, the gunslingers and xenophobes. Her own othering of others. Whatever is driving him, Sheriff Boyer’s not going to turn off the tide of meanness sweeping over the country, but at least he’s saved a handful of “her” people from being carried away.”

“Just because she’s Latina doesn’t automatically confer on her the personality or inclinations of a Mother Teresa. It irritates her, this moral profiling based on her ethnicity.”

Her characters have depth and variability and she explores their personalities in different contexts. How much personality is expressed or subdued depending on your circumstance? How is behavior judged externally based on cultural norms for the time and place? Fascinating and very well done.

The writing is wonderful — I feel like I underlined something in every paragraph but here are a few good ones in addition to those above:

“Like opera, farm art is an acquired taste. There she goes again, shoving someone down her othering chute.”

“In their small town, it seems everyone wants to tell Antonia their Sam story. A testament to how much he was respected and loved. These narratives are a kind of offering — to what god Antonia cannot guess. All she knows is that for the moment she is its reluctant priestess.”

“Her sisters are doing what they always do when they depart a scene, parsing the meat off its bones, analyzing, judging, exclaiming over the different personalities, a kind of sisterhood digestive system.”

“Does suffering hurt less if you’re poor? she asked the room full of young students. Only the silent dark looks of her two minority students signaled to Professor Vega that they got what she was talking about.”

“Call her what you want, Mario says, a snarky insolence in his voice Antonia has never heard before. It grants her a rare glimpse of who the young man might be in a world where he could be the macho, wielding power.”

“Into the vacuum of her considerations he would step with his big, clunky certainties.”

I requested this book because we are starting a promotion for Afterlife with Algonquin marketing, and thus useful for me to know the story outline (which I enjoyed very much). The book is being offered to members to review at the moment, so reviews will be posting over the next month at https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/14764 - and will also be sent to Debra Linn on a weekly basis.

I really enjoyed this novel. It's a story filled with love; love for our partner, siblings, family,acquaintances even strangers. It examines the interconnections we have with each other and how we navigate ourselves in this crazy world. This story reads like a smooth whiskey on a rainy night.

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez is a wonderful piece of literary fiction. This is the first book I have read by Ms. Alvarez, but as I enjoyed this so much, I am going to be sure to read more.

This book brings into play a lot of family and social dynamics: sisters/relationships with siblings, family death, death of a spouse and soulmate, mental illness, and balancing one’s needs while also addressing other’s needs.

This book also addresses a lot of emotional issues as well: love, loss, and acceptance in the abrupt passing of Antonia’s husband Sam, hope and belief that a life can be better lived that takes shape from the situation of undocumented immigrants that is placed on Antonia during the course of the novel, love and fear and frustration and compassion in regards to Antonia and her sisters in the situation with Izzy’s mental issues and temporary disappearance. And finally: optimism, acceptance, and perseverance in the ability for Antonia to overcome the all-encompassing loss and change to her life from losing Sam and creating a new existence to the years she has hereafter. I love that she is creating a way to keep Sam “alive” and with her by always considering what he would have done if he were still alive, and in that keeping a part of him always with her in her path forward. That is a lot to say in such a small story, but the author was able to weave all of this together in a beautiful tale full of characters, imagery, and fabulous text and quotes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

5/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Algonquin Books for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.



There

I have enjoyed reading Julia Alvarez’s books and this one also. The dynamics of four grown sisters and circumstances of the death of a beloved husband. Of course there was some darkness stemming from one sister’s mental illness, the death, and more. The hope in my opinion came from the young immigrant couple and how they could possibly make their life work.. I wanted to hear more of them and their contemporaries.

Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, we are all familiar with the effect of a loved one’s impact well after death. We can not avoid thinking, “What would X do”. After a while, we learn that such a reaction is a generally healthy one. “Afterlife” by Julia Alvarez reminds us that this is so in a powerful manner.

However, that is only one of the main threads weaving through this compelling novel. The other is immigration and how it has manifested itself especially over the most recent generations. Americans have always struggled with immigration, forced and otherwise. In a few recent iterations, Hispanic immigration especially was treated with a bit of a “look the other way” approach. As we all know, that time is clearly over. Immigration in all its phases is now fraught with danger and fear. Our surveillance state seems to know no limits.

Alvarez writes movingly about how even recent immigrants who have worked to assimilate into the so-called American melting pot still struggle to do what’s right. Each situation is unique. Every day brings opportunity for new decisions. Doing nothing becomes a decision as well.

Occasionally there are heroes that appear from the least likely of places. Sometimes there is tragedy that may or may not have been avoided. Ms. Alvarez has written a strong story with multiple layers. Her characters are fully believable;, each situation is totally plausible. The novel is cinematic in nature. Beautifully done.

Thanks to Algonquin and NetGalley for the eARC.

3.5 stars

We women often tend to put other people's needs above our own. Even when we are facing crucial issues in our lives, we will set those issues aside if we think someone else's problems are more pressing. This is exactly what Antonia Vega does in Afterlife. Less than a year ago, her husband Sam died suddenly, and the pain of loss is still raw. She keeps telling herself she is going to make herself number one, but she gets sucked into other people's drama and puts her own healing process on hold.

Antonia has a sister with some mental health issues, and this sister goes missing. While she and her other two sisters are dealing with this crisis, Antonia is also sort of forced into a situation where she has to help some teenage undocumented workers, putting her at risk with law enforcement.
Only when these two incidents have been resolved does Antonia finally start in earnest to do the work of healing herself and finding a new life as a widow.

My favorite character was the one who's not there, Antonia's husband Sam. She knows he was a better person than she is. He was more generous, less judgmental, more willing to help others without hesitation. He lived by a saying his mother used when someone had a problem: "Let's see what love can do." Whenever Antonia is feeling small-minded, or petty, or selfish, she thinks of what Sam would have done in the same situation and she acts accordingly. Her hope is to give Sam an "afterlife" by keeping the best parts of him alive in herself.

I would have liked a little more depth, more exploration of Antonia's grieving. But Alvarez keeps it fairly light, given the subject matter. It's a slight little novel with very readable prose. I finished it in less than 24 hours. It's written in the present tense and has no quotation marks. Normally this would bother me, but in this case the style was so straightforward that it wasn't a problem.