![]() Since the release of her first book, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez has completed six novels, three collections of poetry, three nonfiction works, and 11 works for children and young adults. It’s a construct that appears in other novels by Alvarez as well, including How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (Algonquin Books, 1991), Yo! (Algonquin Books, 1997), and Return to Sender (Yearling, 2009). Like Alvarez herself, Antonia was raised in the Dominican Republic but immigrated to the United States with her family in the early 1960s. Perhaps it’s no surprise that a writer with an extensive body of novels, poetry, essays, and children’s stories would use this world-weary protagonist to ponder these “what’s in store” questions as she enters the autumn of her years. ![]() What, if anything, does it mean? An afterlife? All she has come up with is that the only way not to let the people she loves die forever is to embody what she loved about them. has continued to think a lot about the afterlife, especially in the absence of any sign from Sam. ![]() Readers of a certain vintage can readily sympathize with Antonia’s outlook as she adjusts to her reduced circumstances. Throughout the story, the college teacher and writer struggles to add meaning and purpose to her days as she copes with a series of losses: widowhood, retirement, and the disappearance of a family member. Toward the conclusion of Afterlife (Algonquin Books), a 2020 novel by Vermont-based novelist and poet Julia Alvarez, Antonia Vega, the book’s protagonist, reflects on a number of what might be termed “end of life” issues. No longer a teacher at the college, no longer volunteering and serving on half a dozen boards, no longer in the thick of the writing whirl-she has withdrawn from every narrative, including the ones she makes up for sale. Who am I going to be anymore? Antonia had asked.
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