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Life After Death

A Novel

Author Carol Muske-Dukes
Ebook (EPUB)
Random House Group | Random House
On sale Jul 17, 2001 | 304 Pages | 9781588360144
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"Why don't you just die?" Boyd Schaeffer asks her husband, Russell, one night during a fight.

The next day, he does just that. Russell was rich, sensitive, charming, but always unreliable and it is not clear to Boyd what emotional legacy his untimely death has bequeathed her.

Boyd already has a complicated relationship to death. A former obstetrician, she fled both her profession and New York City when one of her patients died. Back then, she'd escaped with Russell to settle in Minnesota. Now, she embarks (along with her small daughter) on a journey into the underworld—ajourney of grief, self-reproach, and self-discovery so profound and surprising that her individual life in its quiet midwestern setting takes on the universal lineaments of myth. Boyd's companions on this journey into the shadow world between existence and nonexistence include a lonely undertaker; an unconventional embalmer, who demonstrates his trade for her; and her own daughter, who offers a child's instinctive wisdom about life's mysteries. With their help and her own persistence and courage, Boyd begins to understand that endings are often also beginnings, that the Book of Life and Death is constantly being rewritten before our eyes.

"You left her in the park, babe," she cried. "You left her there all alone, babe. You drove off and then you couldn't even remember where she was. Jesus fucking Christ, what's the matter with you?"

"What's the matter with me?"

"What could possibly be the matter? You left a four-year-old all alone in a city park—hey, I'm delighted. She'll learn to be independent, right? Today you taught her that her own father could let her wander off, maybe get kidnapped, get lost. Then you walk away and you call me and say that you can't remember where you left her!"

"I didn't walk away."

"Russell, don't do this. Thank God someone from the preschool saw her there all alone and brought her home."
Copyright © 2001 by Carol Muske-Dukes. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
“An aching awareness of mortality...suffuses every scene in Carol Muske-Dukes’ luminous new novel, which turns a tale of sudden loss into an astonishing meditation on love and bereavement.”
—Newsday

“Carol Muske-Dukes’s writing is filled with poignancy and humor, achieved through her understanding of what
it means to encounter death through the peculiar circumstance of being alive.”
—Steve Martin

“In her passionate novel Life After Death, Carol Muske-Dukes takes us right up against the edge where all lives end. Her prose is stunning, as always; and her fusion of grief and laughter and rage is extraordinary.”
—Ursula Hegi

“Daring and full of surprises, this story takes on the big questions and holds them up to the light, examining them, shifting them. We see life after death—and life before death—from many angles. In scenes rendered with crisp, lucid prose, we are given a range of perspectives on being human; some are recognizable and some are entirely new.”
—Elizabeth Strout
Carol Muske-Dukes is a professor of English at the University of Southern California. Her 1997 collection of poetry, An Octave Above Thunder, was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A poet, critical essayist, and fiction author, she lives in Los Angeles. View titles by Carol Muske-Dukes

About

"Why don't you just die?" Boyd Schaeffer asks her husband, Russell, one night during a fight.

The next day, he does just that. Russell was rich, sensitive, charming, but always unreliable and it is not clear to Boyd what emotional legacy his untimely death has bequeathed her.

Boyd already has a complicated relationship to death. A former obstetrician, she fled both her profession and New York City when one of her patients died. Back then, she'd escaped with Russell to settle in Minnesota. Now, she embarks (along with her small daughter) on a journey into the underworld—ajourney of grief, self-reproach, and self-discovery so profound and surprising that her individual life in its quiet midwestern setting takes on the universal lineaments of myth. Boyd's companions on this journey into the shadow world between existence and nonexistence include a lonely undertaker; an unconventional embalmer, who demonstrates his trade for her; and her own daughter, who offers a child's instinctive wisdom about life's mysteries. With their help and her own persistence and courage, Boyd begins to understand that endings are often also beginnings, that the Book of Life and Death is constantly being rewritten before our eyes.

Excerpt

"You left her in the park, babe," she cried. "You left her there all alone, babe. You drove off and then you couldn't even remember where she was. Jesus fucking Christ, what's the matter with you?"

"What's the matter with me?"

"What could possibly be the matter? You left a four-year-old all alone in a city park—hey, I'm delighted. She'll learn to be independent, right? Today you taught her that her own father could let her wander off, maybe get kidnapped, get lost. Then you walk away and you call me and say that you can't remember where you left her!"

"I didn't walk away."

"Russell, don't do this. Thank God someone from the preschool saw her there all alone and brought her home."
Copyright © 2001 by Carol Muske-Dukes. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Reviews

“An aching awareness of mortality...suffuses every scene in Carol Muske-Dukes’ luminous new novel, which turns a tale of sudden loss into an astonishing meditation on love and bereavement.”
—Newsday

“Carol Muske-Dukes’s writing is filled with poignancy and humor, achieved through her understanding of what
it means to encounter death through the peculiar circumstance of being alive.”
—Steve Martin

“In her passionate novel Life After Death, Carol Muske-Dukes takes us right up against the edge where all lives end. Her prose is stunning, as always; and her fusion of grief and laughter and rage is extraordinary.”
—Ursula Hegi

“Daring and full of surprises, this story takes on the big questions and holds them up to the light, examining them, shifting them. We see life after death—and life before death—from many angles. In scenes rendered with crisp, lucid prose, we are given a range of perspectives on being human; some are recognizable and some are entirely new.”
—Elizabeth Strout

Author

Carol Muske-Dukes is a professor of English at the University of Southern California. Her 1997 collection of poetry, An Octave Above Thunder, was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A poet, critical essayist, and fiction author, she lives in Los Angeles. View titles by Carol Muske-Dukes

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