Afterlife, Julia Alvarez 2020

Alvarez is a prolific writer and a retired Middlebury professor of creative writing.  From her origins in the Dominican Republic, she has been a long time Vermont resident.  This novel feels autobiographical as it places a retired college English professor from the DR in her mid-60’s in rural Vermont where she is suddenly faced with the death of her husband of many years, small town doctor Sam Sawyer.  The first chapter of the book describing her wait in a restaurant for her ever-later husband to arrive is a masterpiece of poignant, creative writing and rings true to those of us catastrophists who always imagine the worst when a loved one is late.  In this case, the worst did happen.  Antonia, struggling with this difficult adjustment, is suddenly plunged into the midst of two additional life-and-death crises.  One of four sisters, she must deal with her older sister’s nervous breakdown and disappearance, her lifelong sisterhood issues, an undocumented pregnant teen who turns up in her garage, and the complexities of her own mourning.  Alvarez makes it all work in this very affecting book.

My initial reaction to the book was to categorize it as ‘chick lit’ but discarded the term feeling it was derogatory and no longer acceptable.  Then I checked Google and found that GoodReads had included it as a legitimate literary form defined as ‘chick lit’, “a genre fiction which addresses issues of modern womanhood, often humorously and lightheartedly. Although it sometimes includes romantic elements, chick lit is generally not considered a direct subcategory of the romance novel genre, because the heroine’s relationship with her family or friends is often just as important as her romantic relationships”