Julia Alvarez (In the Time of Butterflies; A Wedding in Haiti) wrings incredible emotion from her thoughtful novel Afterlife.
Set in present-day Vermont and around the East Coast and Midwest, the story follows retired college professor Antonia Vega through a time of grief and turmoil. Her husband, Sam, has just died, and while Antonia is adjusting to the "afterlife," her older sister, Izzy, disappears. Antonia and her other sisters believe Izzy has bipolar disorder, and hire a private investigator to help them find their missing sibling. While this is going on, Antonia's neighbor, Mario, an undocumented farm worker, solicits her help in getting his undocumented girlfriend, Estela, away from the coyotes who facilitated her illegal crossing into the U.S. Alvarez pulls all these threads together into a narrative that is in equal measure pensive and taut.
Much of Afterlife focuses on the fears and torments immigrants face daily. More than anything, though, it is a poignant meditation on death and the many ways humans deal with the absence of loved ones. Antonia is aging, and she wonders what legacy she'll leave behind, how she will persist, if at all, in the imaginations of others. Alvarez's deft prose turns beautifully evocative at just the right moments: "The evenings are long, the light lingering like a child fighting sleep to have one more bit of the day gone by."
Afterlife is a succinct and powerful novel about human connection. Alvarez is a writer in full command of her form, reminding the world of her vast and venerable talent. --Scott Neuffer, writer, poet, editor of trampset