One of the more lovable assisted-living residents is Sadie Randolph, a retired third-grade teacher who's slipping away to dementia but still believes 'in dictionaries and manners' and that we're all 'forever 8 years old' at heart. As in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, a not entirely rosy portrait emerges of a small community where people know a lot about each other - though often not the most important things - and where the dead live on in local memory.Īuthor Interviews With Humor And Sorrow, 'Life After Life' Explores The Moment Of Death Her gentle wit and sympathetic portrayal of the offbeat and the elderly evoke Anne Tyler as well as several Southern storytellers, including Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Clyde Edgerton and All Things Considered commentator Bailey White. McCorkle's novel glistens with empathy for quirky, often flawed but above all believably human characters who are trying to navigate challenging relationships with spouses, parents and children. Channeling the residents and staff of the Pine Haven Retirement Facility, in the fictional town of Fulton, N.C., she captures a homespun mix of saltiness, warmth, pathos and humor. Readers of McCorkle's earlier fiction - including Ferris Beach, Crash Diet and Going Away Shoes - will appreciate another deftly orchestrated symphony of voices. But their books share little beyond a title.) (Oddly, McCorkle and Kate Atkinson both have novels called Life After Life coming out this spring, which is bound to cause some confusion.

For her first novel in 17 years, McCorkle has dared to write a heartwarmer that takes place largely in a retirement home and stresses the importance of good old-fashioned kindness. How?Īmid a literary landscape increasingly rife with metafictional and postmodern high jinks, Jill McCorkle's sixth novel, Life After Life, is as resolutely down to earth and unpretentious as the hot-dog franchise owned by one of her characters.

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Life after life novel