Life After Death

by Carol Muske-Dukes

"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.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Carol Muske-Dukes (born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1945) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and professor, and the former poet laureate of California (2008–2011). Her most recent book of poetry, Sparrow (Random House, 2003), chronicling the love and loss of Muske-Dukes’ late husband, actor David Dukes, was a National Book Award finalist.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Donna Clay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sounded other worldly and maybe something to read for a good cry. More like weeping .... over a waste of time!! Character from dead to living left me cold. A little presumptous. Just... NO!

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

The topic of death seemed a little bit odd here. It was a story of Boyd, a vaguely schizophrenic woman, who lived in the past assuming the worst of everything. She pretty much ran from her bad luck, then her husband's bumbling to make it worse. (Though she didn't know that until later that he made things worse.)

The husband was a character who seems to be a catalyst for a Woe-is-Me thread throughout the book. He was an entitled idiot, drunkard, and wanna-be poet. But, that is all you get about it other than Boyd really hated him at the beginning of the book.

I'm not sure what it was about this book. It was just OK, but there were lots of parts that had me scratching my head trying to figure out where Muske-Dukes jumped from and to. Seriously. There were just jarring passages that didn't seem connected to one another. You get the feeling it was supposed to go somewhere and have meaning, but it really just ... didn't.

I think the worst part about the book is that it's supposed to be an introspection about death, emotions, and how you might or might not feel after a loved one dies after you say some harsh words. The problem with all this is that the characters are lacklustre, the storyline is jarring, and the "depth" of introspection made you want to stifle yawns. It also got a little too purple from time to time to really figure out what the hell this English professor was trying to say.

Anyway, if lack of character anything strikes your fancy, jarring story elements smashed up against one another, and half-assed introspection about guilt and death are your thing, go for it. Clearly, it isn't mine.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I might have been more knocked-out by this book if I hadn't read Didion's much deeper examination of grief in her memoir. There are some lovely, haunting moments in this novel, but the main character isn't terribly likeable, and I got tired of her long before the book was over. Muske-Dukes does this topic much better in her collection of poems Sparrow.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always liked the actor David Dukes. This is his wife's story of guilt because she was angry with him and yelled, "Die!" He did and she's left to wonder was it coincidence or suicide. Heart-wrenching.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book, the main character's husband dies after she tells him that she wishes he would. Then very, very little happens and the discussions of death and grief weren't particularly deep or thought-provoking. Aside from a few good passages here and there, this was a bore.

[Ayelet Waldman]

This was a good enough read, but I ended up a little dissatisfied at the end.