Book Review: Life After Life by Jill McCorkle

Life After Life by Jill McCorkle

Published by: Algonquin Books

Published on: March 26, 2013

Page Count: 352

Genre: fiction

My Reading Format: Advanced reading copy, Kindle edition from Netgalley

Available Formats: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle and Audible audio editions

My review:

Family secrets, disappearing acts, quirky old folks, memories, dark pasts, small town life, oral history, a beloved dog, those who are crazy and those who just pretend to be: ingredients needed to write a proper Southern novel. Jill McCorkle has included all these things and more in her first book in 17 years, Life After Life. In the spirit of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and the more recent A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty (Joshilyn Jackson), McCorkle beautifully and convincingly captures the voices of a myriad of characters - all ages, both genders and those who will do good and the world and those who won't.

Life After Life takes place mostly in a small North Carolina town. A young girl named Abby feels more comfortable spending time next door at Pine Haven, the town's retirement home, than she does with her mother or her peers at school. Nearly every character has trouble fitting in to the world around them because of something: too many marriages, too many tattoos, too many affairs or too many inappropriate comments. At Pine Haven, the residents remember their life before they moved in: what they did for a living, how they raised their children, how they fit in in Fulton, North Carolina. What they can't remember or don't want to, they make up. Resident Sadie has made a business out of putting two old photographs together to create a new reality and make a new memory for its owner.

Though some residents appear to have moved to Pine Haven simply to wait around for the end of their lives, quite a lot of living is to be done here. It's their life after life, and so are their stories preserved by hospice volunteer Joanna. For one resident named Rachel, her reasons for moving south from Massachusetts are kept quiet, and she keeps much of the life she led before to herself.   

There are secrets and sadness for the characters like Abby who live outside the retirement home as well. McCorkle brings the two worlds in Fulton, North Carolina, together in beautiful ways as the story comes to a surprising, shocking, saddening close. 

4.5 out of 5 stars

*If you think you'll like Life After Life, you'll probably also like Lunch at the Picadilly by Clyde Edgerton and A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson. 

Author Reading: Joshilyn Jackson

Last night I went to the book release party for Joshilyn Jackson's latest novel, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, published yesterday. The event was hosted by the Georgia Center for the Book and held at the Decatur Public Library. Jackson read passages from each of her three narrators in the novel, talked about how the book came about and gave a summary since most in the audience had a just-purchased hardcover copy in their hands. One of my favorite things about when authors speak is hearing about how their books come about. Jackson said (and I love this) that characters appear to her and float around in her head, usually for years, before she ever starts writing to see what happens to them. She said she gets some of her ideas for plots and characters since she's a good eavesdropper (I love this too). More books are to come from her and I can't wait to read whatever she puts out next.

Book Review: A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson

Published by: Grand Central Publishing
Published on: January 25, 2012
Page Count: 288
Genre: Adult Fiction
My Reading Format: Advanced Reading Copy in PDF from NetGalley
Available Formats: Hardcover, Amazon Kindle

My Review:

Joshilyn Jackson's fifth novel, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, like her other books, has a Southern setting. This time it's South Mississippi and more of the complicated small-town social structure and the kinds of hushed-up family secrets we've come to expect from Jackson. Challenges come around every 15 years for Ginny "Big" Slocumb, her daughter Liza and Liza's daughter Mosey. This time Liza has had a stroke and is unable to communicate to her family and investigators why the bones of a baby are buried in their backyard. The digging up of the skeleton means a exposing all kinds of things from the Slocumb women's pasts. They have to face what has been hidden for years and sort it out in a way that makes sense as they establish a new normal for their lives.

Jackson is excellent at twisting the plot around so her readers keep guessing. Her quirky characters are modern but reminiscent of Faulkner or O'Connor with their complexity, and the way their lives are intertwined with those in their families and in the communities around them. The story is told through each of the three Slocumbs' voices: a grandmother trying to hold the family together and keep her own sanity, a stroke victim whose mind is clear but whose speech is garbled, and a teenager who does much of her communicating through texts from her cell phone or with her best friend, but has lots going on inside her head. Having the voice of each of these characters is integral to giving readers perspective from three different angles to paint the whole picture.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys good characterization, Southern fiction and Southern sayings (the novel is full of them). One of my favorite Faulkner quotes certainly relates well to A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."