Life After Life: A Novel - Softcover

“Great writing, poignancy, humor, wisdom―all are in abundance here.”*

Award-winning novelist Jill McCorkle takes us on a journey through time and memory as the residents of a close-knit community demonstrate that grace and magic can―and do―appear when we least expect them. From twelve-year-old Abby to eighty-five-year-old Sadie, they prove our capacity for self-discovery, second chances, and hope―at any age.

“Illuminating, reassuring, and enlarging our understanding of the crossing from this world to the next, her novel sings with the mystical, the magical and the fragility of this thing called life.” ―The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“McCorkle’s masterful microcosm invokes profound sadness, harsh insight and guffaws, often on the same page.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“Great . . . Sharply real.” ―Entertainment Weekly

“Clever, bighearted, and wise.” ―Vanity Fair

“The elderly residents of Pine Haven live and yearn and challenge one another with an exuberance that jumps off the page.” ―The New York Times

“This is grown-up fun. Deep pleasure for smart people. And it is beautiful all the way.” ―Richard Bausch, author of Peace

“A powerful gift for dialogue has always animated Jill McCorkle’s fiction, and here we hear some astonishing voices . . . As readers, we feel honored to witness their passages.” ―The Boston Globe

“A story and characters that readers won’t soon forget.” ―Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Jill McCorkle is one of the South’s greatest writers; she is also one of America’s.” ―*Ron Rash, author of Nothing Gold Can Stay

Jill McCorkle’s first two novels were released simultaneously when she was just out of college, and the New York Times called her “a born novelist.” Since then, she has published six novels and four collections of short stories, and her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories several times, as well as The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Five of her books have been New York Times Notable books, and her most recent novel, Life After Life, was a New York Times bestseller. She has received the New England Booksellers Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. She has written for the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Garden and Gun, the Atlantic, and other publications. She was a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard, where she also chaired the department of creative writing. She is currently a faculty member of the Bennington College Writing Seminars and is affiliated with the MFA program at North Carolina State University.