num_pages: 336
description: “Marvelously moving . . . These tales evoke a certain peace and a definite wonder at what an astonishingly graceful writer Updike is.”— USA TodayTo the hero of the title story of this collection, all of England has the glow of an “A miraculous lacquer lay upon everything, beading each roadside twig . . . each reed of thatch, each tiny daisy trembling in the grass.” All of these stories, each in its own way, partake of this glow, as life beyond middle age is explored and found to have its own exquisite dearness. As death approaches, existence takes on, for some of Updike’s aging characters, a translucence, a magical fragility; vivid memory and casual misperception lend the mundane an antic texture, and the backward view, lengthening, acquires a certain grandeur. Here is a world where wonder stubbornly persists, and fresh beginnings almost outnumber losses.
language: English
title: The Afterlife and Other Stories
titlecomplete: The Afterlife and Other Stories
genres: 20th Century, American, Short Stories, Americana, American Fiction, Literature, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 615
awards: awardedAt: 662716800000
name: O. Henry Award
category: 'A Sandstone Farmhouse'
publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks