Book #12: Life After Life by Jill McCorkle

I don't know why this book has been on my "to-read" list forever. But I think it's because a friend from my master's program talked about it on Facebook one time, because the author teaches in the MFA program at NC State. But I ignored it until I happened to see this book on a shelf at the library while I was there last time and I picked it up, spur of the moment (I know! I'm wild and crazy!), and proceeded to leave it unread on my shelf until it was demanded to be returned. But I just sped through it the last few days--and I actually really enjoyed it. (Except for the end, but not because it was poorly written--just because it was sad.)

Life After Life is about the residents of a nursing home in Fulton, North Carolina, and how each one is adjusting to the new expectations and situation of this new life that they are living. Some of them have known each other their whole lives, while others are transplants. But they each have their own private story which nobody else really knows about--no matter how long they've known each other--and we learn about each person's secrets through individual narratives from the perspective of each character. There are also a few people who work at the nursing home, and people who visit, who we get to know. Almost everyone has a kind of tragic history, even the little twelve-year-old with a sad home life who comes to visit an old resident every day to escape from her home. I didn't love that about this book--everyone had hidden, dark, sad secrets--although I know that's more realistic than I'd like to think about this world. I just really hated the ending--it kind of came out of nowhere and I didn't feel prepared for it. Maybe that was an authorial choice, to surprise you with this dark twist at the end, but it seemed like there should have been more build-up or hinting at what was going on before we got there. Additionally, there were a few characters that didn't seem fully real--like the super catty, self-obsessed mom who's having an affair and thinks of nothing but wearing designer clothes and hates her husband for not being ambitious. Are there really people that are that one-dimensional? I think the answer is probably YES, but I always expect to find more interesting people, with more than one characteristic to define them, in books (at least, in well-written books). My favorite character was Sadie Randolph, one of the older residents of the nursing home, who was a third-grade teacher her whole life and knows all the kids in the town. She is cheerful, sweet, and had a happy life with her husband and kids--but it doesn't seem cloying or fake. I want to be like her when I'm 90.

Overall, this book got to me. I think I felt that by how depressed I was by the ending. I felt like I really got a glimpse into each character's head and that I really knew them by the end. It was a good read.