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A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife by Daniel Quinn
The guide of choice for anyone who plans to die someday--are YOU ready for the AFTERLIFE?To find out, take this simple 1. Like Earth, the Afterlife has celebrities, outcasts, deadheads, losers, and busybodies. TrueFalse2. Is there an Afterlife after the Afterlife?YesNo3. When you first arrive on "the Other Side," you will be a) a set of wingsb) a toasterc) a copy of A Newcomer's Guide to the AfterlifeDon't worry if you're not sure how to respond. A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife has answers to these questions and more--and if you're lucky, some of them may turn out to be right!An irreverent, one-of-a-kind compendium from the award-winning author of Ishmael, A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife can be read as a parable, an allegory, a work of fiction--or exactly what it claims to a helpful handbook for the recently deceased. It is filled with uncommon wisdom, bizarre imaginings, uncanny perceptions, and unexpected humor. Is it fantastic escapism or a seminal event in human history? Read it and find out....Face it. The Afterlife is the ultimate test. You might as well study.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
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About the author
Daniel Quinn
52 books1,880 followersI had and did the usual things -- childhood, schools, universities (St. Louis, Vienna, Loyola of Chicago), then embarked on a career in publishing in Chicago. Within a few years I was the head of the Biography & Fine Arts Department of the American Peoples Encyclopedia; when that was subsumed by a larger outfit and moved to New York, I stayed behind and moved into educational publishing, beginning at Science Research Associates (a division of IBM) and ending as Editorial Director of The Society for Vision Education (a division of the Singer Corporation).
In 1977 I walked away from SVE and this very successful career when it became clear that I was not going to able to do there what I really wanted to do...which was not entirely clear. A few months later I set my feet on a path that would change my life completely. It was a path made up of books -- or rather versions of a book that, after twelve years, would turn out to be ISHMAEL.
The first version, written in 1977-78, called MAN AND ALIEN, didn't turn out to be quite what I wanted, so wrote a second, called THE GENESIS TRANSCRIPT. Like the first version, this didn't satisfy me, so I wrote a third with the same title. THE BOOK OF NAHASH, abandoned unfinished, was the fourth version.
When I started writing version five, THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print. Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four... but it just wasn't there. What I'd done was terrific -- and complete in its own way -- but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes.
And so, on to versions six and seven (both called ANOTHER STORY TO BE IN). I knew I was close, and version eight was it -- the first and only version to be a novel and the first and only version inhabited by a telepathic gorilla named Ishmael.
ISHMAEL was a life-changing book. It began by winning the Turner Tomorrow Award, the largest prize ever given to a single literary work. It would come to be read in some 25 languages and used in classrooms from mid-school to graduate school in courses as varied as history philosophy, geography, archaeology, religion, biology, zoology, ecology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology.
But in 1992, when ISHMAEL was published, I had no idea what I might do next. My readers decided this for me. In letters that arrived by the bushel they demanded to know where this strange book came from, what "made" me write it. To answer these questions I wrote PROVIDENCE: THE STORY OF A FIFTY-YEAR VISION QUEST (1995).
But there were even more urgently important questions to be answered, particularly this one: "With ISHMAEL you've undermined the religious beliefs of a lifetime. What am I supposed to replace them with?" I replied to this with THE STORY OF B (1996).
The questions (and books) kept coming: Why did Ishmael have to die? This gave rise to MY ISHMAEL: A SEQUEL (1997), in which it's revealed that Ishmael was not only far from being dead but far from being finished with his work as a teacher. The question "Where do we go from here?" was the inspiration for BEYOND CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY'S NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE (1999), a very different kind of book.
With these questions answered (and 500 more on my website), I felt I was fundamentally finished with what might be called my teachings and ready to move on.
I had always taken as my guiding principle these words from André Gide: "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it.
In 1977 I walked away from SVE and this very successful career when it became clear that I was not going to able to do there what I really wanted to do...which was not entirely clear. A few months later I set my feet on a path that would change my life completely. It was a path made up of books -- or rather versions of a book that, after twelve years, would turn out to be ISHMAEL.
The first version, written in 1977-78, called MAN AND ALIEN, didn't turn out to be quite what I wanted, so wrote a second, called THE GENESIS TRANSCRIPT. Like the first version, this didn't satisfy me, so I wrote a third with the same title. THE BOOK OF NAHASH, abandoned unfinished, was the fourth version.
When I started writing version five, THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED in 1981, I was sure I'd found the book I was born to write. The versions that came before had been like rainy days with moments of sunshine. THIS was a thunderstorm, and the lines crossed my pages like flashes of lightning. When, after a few thousand words I came to a clear climax, I said, "This MUST be seen," so I put Part One into print. Parts Two and Three followed, and I began searching for the switch that would turn on Part Four... but it just wasn't there. What I'd done was terrific -- and complete in its own way -- but at last I faced the fact that the whole thing just couldn't be done in lightning strikes.
And so, on to versions six and seven (both called ANOTHER STORY TO BE IN). I knew I was close, and version eight was it -- the first and only version to be a novel and the first and only version inhabited by a telepathic gorilla named Ishmael.
ISHMAEL was a life-changing book. It began by winning the Turner Tomorrow Award, the largest prize ever given to a single literary work. It would come to be read in some 25 languages and used in classrooms from mid-school to graduate school in courses as varied as history philosophy, geography, archaeology, religion, biology, zoology, ecology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology.
But in 1992, when ISHMAEL was published, I had no idea what I might do next. My readers decided this for me. In letters that arrived by the bushel they demanded to know where this strange book came from, what "made" me write it. To answer these questions I wrote PROVIDENCE: THE STORY OF A FIFTY-YEAR VISION QUEST (1995).
But there were even more urgently important questions to be answered, particularly this one: "With ISHMAEL you've undermined the religious beliefs of a lifetime. What am I supposed to replace them with?" I replied to this with THE STORY OF B (1996).
The questions (and books) kept coming: Why did Ishmael have to die? This gave rise to MY ISHMAEL: A SEQUEL (1997), in which it's revealed that Ishmael was not only far from being dead but far from being finished with his work as a teacher. The question "Where do we go from here?" was the inspiration for BEYOND CIVILIZATION: HUMANITY'S NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE (1999), a very different kind of book.
With these questions answered (and 500 more on my website), I felt I was fundamentally finished with what might be called my teachings and ready to move on.
I had always taken as my guiding principle these words from André Gide: "What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it, written as well as you, do not write it.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 1, 2008
Haphazard nonsense. There are some interesting ideas and snippets in there, but lacked the formalized feel of an actual guide.
Admittedly, that was likely to have been intended, but the execution just comes out chaotic and jumbled.
Surrealism is one thing; confusion is another.
Admittedly, that was likely to have been intended, but the execution just comes out chaotic and jumbled.
Surrealism is one thing; confusion is another.
August 7, 2012
This is my favorite book of all time. If you are alive right now and plan on dieing at any time in the near or distant future you need to read this book.
October 9, 2008
not the best book ever, but creative and fun. i loved it inspite of it's sometimes pretentious self-serving-ego-stroking. aside from that, it's got some fun thing to think about.
August 1, 2011
This book gave me a lot to think about and consider. It was kind of haunting.
March 29, 2022
I have not a single clue what it was that I just read. Completely unclassifiable. I kept reading because it was not awful and because I wanted to see if I would ever figure out what the book was about. I did not. The back cover says, "can be read as a parable, an allegory, a work of fiction -- or exactly what it claims to be: a helpful handbook for the recently deceased." I suppose it might function as the last one, if the afterlife is anything like the pointless wasteland that the book describes -- I have no way of knowing. I did not find the "uncommon wisdom . . . uncanny perceptions , and unexpected humor" promised by the cover, although I can definitely attest to the presence of the promised "bizarre imaginings". The whole reason I picked up this book was that I had seen the title listed somewhere on a list of weird book titles and it was on the bargain book shelf and I thought it might be off-beat like Douglas Adams or even philosophical like Mitch Albom. Not. At the end of the day, I am left wondering what the point was.
February 17, 2025
The first 80(ish) pages of this book were entertaining. Once you reach the Appendixes nothing makes sense. There is a lot of word repetition that is frankly annoying and feels like they were trying to fill up the page of an essay for a school paper. I would highly recommend skipping the last section.
I knew the afterlife was hell one your dog didn’t recognize you or care about you. So the revelation of that seemed anti-climatic. I sure hope the afterlife is not as described within these pages.
I thought the footnotes were also a bit lazy and require the reader to jump around. I liked it for the guidebook feel but it was an overused technique.
I did read this in 1 day, in 2 short sittings though. So nice page turner to feel accomplished.
I knew the afterlife was hell one your dog didn’t recognize you or care about you. So the revelation of that seemed anti-climatic. I sure hope the afterlife is not as described within these pages.
I thought the footnotes were also a bit lazy and require the reader to jump around. I liked it for the guidebook feel but it was an overused technique.
I did read this in 1 day, in 2 short sittings though. So nice page turner to feel accomplished.
February 15, 2019
I purchased this book used with high expectations, and was not disappointed. Quinn and Whalen explore key philosophical concepts in a way that is just obscure enough to invoke questions to which there are no known (or, rather, universal) answers. The psycho babble in the appendix, the surreal "photography", the notation to theoretical science (and the fact that the scientific field remains and even flourishes in the unexplained afterlife), all of this helps to conjure a truly fascinating and haunting realm, where the concept of being becomes unrestrained from need or time.
May 10, 2021
I love his new trailer on the afterlife, not only does it make perfect sense but did you both with excitement and dread but most of curiosity. I've been a DQ fan for years since 'Ishmael' was given to me by a family member. Highly recommend for a good quick read.
July 23, 2020
This book had some interesting bits.
I think there was a lot of potential here for a great book, but most of it was hit or miss for me.
Overall I thought it was decent, just could've been more.
I think there was a lot of potential here for a great book, but most of it was hit or miss for me.
Overall I thought it was decent, just could've been more.
July 20, 2023
A quirky spin on the heaven and hell delusion. Enjoyable enough, certainly not Quinn’s best.
June 4, 2025
Mostly odd, but short enough to tolerate the absurdity for the profound moments.
July 21, 2009
Hmmm, okay this book honestly scared the **** out of me! I had a "dream" (if you can call it one) a few months back that has been bothering me ever since...this dream in all actualitly was an OOBE (out of body experience). I am spiritual and talk regurlarly with my spirit guide and mother God and had made a request to go to the "other side" in my dreams that night, but to also come back remembering it. So, it happened, I was in spirit form and I was "floating and bobing" around this place and was exstaticly happy, and was asking some female or felmales whom I don't quit remember but knew was there and I was speaking with her/them to show me where the children go and I saw a place with blue waters and stairs and such, much like I saw in the film "What Dreams may Come" with Robin Williams, and then suddenly I was bobbing around this "playground" but wasn't quit a playground and I realized that these women were not laughing with me, but observing me curiously and actually laughing at me for being so thrilled and exhuberant for being happy in a place where it seemed was not quite a "big deal" I remember thinking that I had asked these women/woman when I was in the place for "children" or perhaps when I'm on the playground just thinking to myself (I'm not sure when) that I wanted to go to "the other side of the World/afterlife realm whatever". I also remember floating around someplace that resembled a store with a woman inside who was looking rather miffed that I was in there I mean she was clearly disturbed by my presence and I felt embarrased from the spirits watching me and laughing and I thought "this isn't what the other side is supposed to be like,spirits aren't supposed to be hateful or angry and this place was by no means beautiful, in fact it was DESERT! and this store was very obscure and kind of in the middle of nowhere! I had already willed myself there, to this other side of the other side - and decided I wanted to kind of 'teleport" myself somewhere else in this place, which I did, and I was still in my spirit form and "woke up" and I use that term loosely, alone, and in a desert, by an empty RIVER BED, with sand all around me that was neither HOT NOR SANDY! Does any of this sound familiar to you??? Where I went during my astral travel, or shall I say where I ended up at the end of my trip perhaps, was exactly what is described in "A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife" which I just randomly picked up at the library yesterday. I have been searching for the answer to my weird experience, and now that it seems I have found that "answer" in fact I have not because this only leads to more questions!
I believe this place described is "pergatory" or a waiting place, or the "left door", a place for those who are unwilling to accept what they did or who they were in life and don't believe they are deserving of God's love and forgiveness, they have created their own personal hell, In other readings I have came across a place similar to this, where "no one know's who they are, and they are all very confused"...I believe the "Adepts" are angels who only communicate with each other telepathicly and are there to kind of look out for these lost souls because God never abandon's us. They say they are "cold" and that their clothes "wear out" and that people appear and then dissapear and the "husks" dissintigrate then the "Adepts" dispose of their "remains". This place sounds horrible to me, and the persons mentioned to reside in this place are all excentrics, crazies, evil persons or intelligencia that were completely obsessed and absorbed by their work in life, there is no mention of mother teresa or ANY good people being located there, as well as the fact that so many people are searching for friends and family that are never found... could this be because they are in Heaven, or the TRUE "Afterlife" Are these the "dead" the bible speaks of raising in the "resurection"? So many questions, I know what I BELIEVE, and I know what I have seen, I know I have been to this place, is that because of a slip of the tongue - "I want to go to the other side of the world(afterworld)?" I think so, I think I was already somewhere unconciously visiting astrally perhaps "heaven" which it is said we do several times a week but do not remember it. Perhaps I just had the unlucky opportunity to remember just going to this place. Perhaps I went there for a reason, to find this book and read it, to write about it, I know this is just one phase in my search for the meaning of life, and where I'm going when I die. I will continue to seek out this answer. Untill then , I remain confussed. There's a difference/descrepancy between what I BELIEVE and what I have SEEN! This scares me! What if this place is what it claims to be, the Afterlife? I'm going to believe it's not, just one part of the bigger picture, a place spirits end up sending themselves, and I for one am going to make sure I won't be one of them.
I believe this place described is "pergatory" or a waiting place, or the "left door", a place for those who are unwilling to accept what they did or who they were in life and don't believe they are deserving of God's love and forgiveness, they have created their own personal hell, In other readings I have came across a place similar to this, where "no one know's who they are, and they are all very confused"...I believe the "Adepts" are angels who only communicate with each other telepathicly and are there to kind of look out for these lost souls because God never abandon's us. They say they are "cold" and that their clothes "wear out" and that people appear and then dissapear and the "husks" dissintigrate then the "Adepts" dispose of their "remains". This place sounds horrible to me, and the persons mentioned to reside in this place are all excentrics, crazies, evil persons or intelligencia that were completely obsessed and absorbed by their work in life, there is no mention of mother teresa or ANY good people being located there, as well as the fact that so many people are searching for friends and family that are never found... could this be because they are in Heaven, or the TRUE "Afterlife" Are these the "dead" the bible speaks of raising in the "resurection"? So many questions, I know what I BELIEVE, and I know what I have seen, I know I have been to this place, is that because of a slip of the tongue - "I want to go to the other side of the world(afterworld)?" I think so, I think I was already somewhere unconciously visiting astrally perhaps "heaven" which it is said we do several times a week but do not remember it. Perhaps I just had the unlucky opportunity to remember just going to this place. Perhaps I went there for a reason, to find this book and read it, to write about it, I know this is just one phase in my search for the meaning of life, and where I'm going when I die. I will continue to seek out this answer. Untill then , I remain confussed. There's a difference/descrepancy between what I BELIEVE and what I have SEEN! This scares me! What if this place is what it claims to be, the Afterlife? I'm going to believe it's not, just one part of the bigger picture, a place spirits end up sending themselves, and I for one am going to make sure I won't be one of them.
February 8, 2021
I am a huge fan of Quinn’s work.
However, I would only recommend this book to die-hard Quinn fans. This book really is a piece of art, an artist playing with his craft, but it is not recommended for anyone newly or even medium-ly acquainted with his work. This piece must be read with an eye for allegory and a sense of playfulness by someone familiar with Quinn’s philosophy. When read in that gram of mind, it is insightful and enjoyable. Otherwise, it is confusing.
However, I would only recommend this book to die-hard Quinn fans. This book really is a piece of art, an artist playing with his craft, but it is not recommended for anyone newly or even medium-ly acquainted with his work. This piece must be read with an eye for allegory and a sense of playfulness by someone familiar with Quinn’s philosophy. When read in that gram of mind, it is insightful and enjoyable. Otherwise, it is confusing.
July 3, 2011
I dig the metaphor. Could just as easily been entitled, A Newcomer's Guide to Post-Civilization. The footnotes offered insight and often weak humor (though I openly admit to LOLing numerous times). The footnote on the first page of Chapter 5, entitled "Religions of the Afterlife" gives particular insight to Rewilders about this book, wherein the authors write, "..Take a "deep dive" and you'll come up in the midst of people whose view of reality is animistic; for them, the transition between life and the Afterlife was a slight and unimportant one; they perceive no great difference between the two, and so their religious beliefs are much the same as they were in life."
May 21, 2013
I found this book for sale, used, for 50 cents. Which is good because he cover price says it would have cost me $32 Canadian, for what is a very slim hardcover book.
The book pretends to be a guide for people who have died & just entered the afterlife. It's a weird, funny, crazy book. There are frequently asked questions as well as photographs and other oddities.
"Many a newcomer's first impression of the Afterlife is that it's not much different from a madhouse."
It is a weird, fun book. It's exactly the sort of thing I hope to find on the shelves of a used bookstore: something small & different & funny that I would otherwise never have heard of.
The book pretends to be a guide for people who have died & just entered the afterlife. It's a weird, funny, crazy book. There are frequently asked questions as well as photographs and other oddities.
"Many a newcomer's first impression of the Afterlife is that it's not much different from a madhouse."
It is a weird, fun book. It's exactly the sort of thing I hope to find on the shelves of a used bookstore: something small & different & funny that I would otherwise never have heard of.
June 25, 2008
I read this over the weekend. It really bothered me, but I'm still trying to figure out why. I'm not sure what the allegory or the parable is supposed to be! And in the literal sense, this is an afterlife that sounds rather awful on many levels. If the purpose is to make you appreciate life, in spite of all of it's faults by showing you a world with no politics, violence or morals than it works well. :)
September 8, 2013
This book was buried at the bottom of my TBR box. I don't recall when I bought it -quite a few years ago- and I certainly hope I didn't pay the $22.95 printed on the dustcover. I can't decide whether the authors are tongue-in-cheek laughing at you, agnostic, anti-religion, or actually believe even part of what they say.
Don't waste your time on this drivel.
Don't waste your time on this drivel.
March 12, 2008
This book has more potential than anything else. Still, I thought it was pretty funny; full of bizarre nonsensical rambling and such. Interesting, but it could have been so much more. However, its funny that this vision of the afterlife is no less absurd than any religion's conception of it.
December 23, 2015
I re-read after having read it years ago because my son read it and wanted to talk about it. It's provocative and leads to great conversations with children that can range from heavy to absurdly funny. The book is chunked well so it reads quickly and is great as a travel book.
June 6, 2013
I hated this book - odd and hard to understand. Not like Daniel Quinn's other work.
June 5, 2015
A good quick read. Fun for some new perspectives. Not worth reading more than once.
August 24, 2008
A very silly book.
September 16, 2014
Still laughing at this one!
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews