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Afterlife
The seventies. Summer. Four students in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Two young American women, one hell-bent on destruction. Alcohol, LSD, sex, jealousy, infidelity and poetry. At the end of the summer, one of the four students will be dead, and another will be destroyed by his inability to let go of past memories, guilt and bitterness. ‘A cracker’ Evening Standard ‘Chills to the bone’ Independent on Sunday ‘Rich and powerful’ Daily Mail ‘Afterlife positively throbs with loss . . . It’s a deeply absorbing novel that lingers in the mind like the ghosts it so ardently evokes’ Claire Kilroy Irish Times ‘A richly rewarding portrait of friendships under siege, full of vibrant characters and atmospheres that linger in the mind and the heart’ Sunday Telegraph
306 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2009
28 people want to read
About the author
Sean O'Brien
138 books17 followersSean O'Brien is a British poet, critic and playwright. Prizes he has won include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize (1995, 2001 and 2007) and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only four poets (the others being Ted Hughes, John Burnside and Jason Allen-Paisant) to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems (The Drowned Book).
Born in London, England, O'Brien grew up in Hull, and was educated at Hymers College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. He has lived since 1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he teaches at the university. He was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor at St. Anne's College, Oxford, for 2016–17.
Born in London, England, O'Brien grew up in Hull, and was educated at Hymers College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. He has lived since 1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he teaches at the university. He was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor at St. Anne's College, Oxford, for 2016–17.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 10, 2020
Should poets turn their hand to prose fiction? If you're John Burnside and you write a book like "Glister" then unabashedly yes. If you're Sean O'Brian, don't give up the day job.
Ironically, this is not due to any poetic traits overwhelming the text. There are a few good linguistic and lyrical flourishes on display here. What lets it down is the material O'Brien has seen fit to offer. Three chums decide that they can shirk the life of a working stiff and continue to write poems after they leave University. They decamp to the wild, unspoiled Marches on the English-Welsh border and are joined by the girlfriend of the narrator to make it a cosy foursome. A more effete and 'fey' (author's own adjective) group of people you could not wish to avoid encountering. Again in the author's own words on page 219 "All this was of course only a crisis for a few young bourgeois". And that's supposed to be a plus point of the novel?
Encountering is a key word here. These four beings repeatedly bump into one another in fields and undergrowth and abandoned barns. Or they accidently eavesdrop on two of the others in some sort of moral trespass. They rarely bump into one another across the breakfast table in their shared house for example. It's all a bit tedious and Shakespearian seeing as it's supposed to be the 1960's. And yet we are asked to believe among all this claustrophobic space, there are unknown secrets aplenty between them.
I think the book wants to be Fowles' "The Magus" or Tartt's "The Secret Life" in that one Summer inexorably defines the lives of four people standing at the cusp of their adulthood. And while there are some good backgrounding ideas here, such as the vitality and relevance of poetry beginning to be eclipsed by the vibrancy of film and documentary (and towards the end, its own suggested eclipsing by celebrity culture). But what insights are on show, are completely subverted by the author's startling pronouncement from manipulative, plagiarist poet playboy extraordinaire Alex, that "Look Martin, it's simple. They (women) are all cock-hungry in the end". I'm offended on behalf of literature let alone women.
These characters are simply odious. They each suffer a period of mental breakdown, one of which is prompted by a spiked party drink. It was so transparent how that episode was going to end up. Fortunately, or unfortunately perhaps, our narrator recovers from his to be able to steer us through the novel. I didn't really see why he needed to suffer a breakdown as well. It didn't seem to add anything to his self-involvement with a metaphysical poet he was charged with researching as a means of making a little money seeing as he wasn't as privileged as his two fellow poets. Cue for long authorial rambles through poetic theory, based around a fictional poet (how tiresome is that particular device?) But it doesn't stop there. O'Brien also gives us his (characters') opinion on two real 60's films at length. "The Whicker Man" and "Don't Look Now" which assumes that the reader has both seen them and has the same take on both films. I don't. I might discuss it with him at a dinner party, but over the course of a novel when I have no redress, I just get irritated at his presumption.
Again in the author's own words, commenting about the climactic party act of symbolic book-burning as well as a rare painting of the fictional poet Martin is studying, "it was a work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. It had no aura. It was a fetish commodity. And it was a lousy painting" all of which critiques could be hung around the neck of this saggy novel. With the last point the primary.
Ironically, this is not due to any poetic traits overwhelming the text. There are a few good linguistic and lyrical flourishes on display here. What lets it down is the material O'Brien has seen fit to offer. Three chums decide that they can shirk the life of a working stiff and continue to write poems after they leave University. They decamp to the wild, unspoiled Marches on the English-Welsh border and are joined by the girlfriend of the narrator to make it a cosy foursome. A more effete and 'fey' (author's own adjective) group of people you could not wish to avoid encountering. Again in the author's own words on page 219 "All this was of course only a crisis for a few young bourgeois". And that's supposed to be a plus point of the novel?
Encountering is a key word here. These four beings repeatedly bump into one another in fields and undergrowth and abandoned barns. Or they accidently eavesdrop on two of the others in some sort of moral trespass. They rarely bump into one another across the breakfast table in their shared house for example. It's all a bit tedious and Shakespearian seeing as it's supposed to be the 1960's. And yet we are asked to believe among all this claustrophobic space, there are unknown secrets aplenty between them.
I think the book wants to be Fowles' "The Magus" or Tartt's "The Secret Life" in that one Summer inexorably defines the lives of four people standing at the cusp of their adulthood. And while there are some good backgrounding ideas here, such as the vitality and relevance of poetry beginning to be eclipsed by the vibrancy of film and documentary (and towards the end, its own suggested eclipsing by celebrity culture). But what insights are on show, are completely subverted by the author's startling pronouncement from manipulative, plagiarist poet playboy extraordinaire Alex, that "Look Martin, it's simple. They (women) are all cock-hungry in the end". I'm offended on behalf of literature let alone women.
These characters are simply odious. They each suffer a period of mental breakdown, one of which is prompted by a spiked party drink. It was so transparent how that episode was going to end up. Fortunately, or unfortunately perhaps, our narrator recovers from his to be able to steer us through the novel. I didn't really see why he needed to suffer a breakdown as well. It didn't seem to add anything to his self-involvement with a metaphysical poet he was charged with researching as a means of making a little money seeing as he wasn't as privileged as his two fellow poets. Cue for long authorial rambles through poetic theory, based around a fictional poet (how tiresome is that particular device?) But it doesn't stop there. O'Brien also gives us his (characters') opinion on two real 60's films at length. "The Whicker Man" and "Don't Look Now" which assumes that the reader has both seen them and has the same take on both films. I don't. I might discuss it with him at a dinner party, but over the course of a novel when I have no redress, I just get irritated at his presumption.
Again in the author's own words, commenting about the climactic party act of symbolic book-burning as well as a rare painting of the fictional poet Martin is studying, "it was a work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. It had no aura. It was a fetish commodity. And it was a lousy painting" all of which critiques could be hung around the neck of this saggy novel. With the last point the primary.
February 12, 2010
A bit of a slow start at the beginning. But that's only because O'Brien is building the suspense to the climax. After that the story of a group of university and art students, particularly four, three of whom were aspiring poets, Martin Stone, his girfriend Susie, Alex and his girlfriend Jane.
It is a story of when these four having a stoned time working on their small magazine, in some late 70s, living in some English countryside. It should have been very idyllic, all the drugs and sex. But things started to go wrong when an American Diane, armed with her camera, and a pair of destructive Germans, appeared on the scene. With Diane following them and filming everything, the Germans wreaked havoc during a party, in which they secretly drugged the wine, causing mass hallucination and destruction of properties, of historical papers, books and paintings.
Afterwards things went form bad to worse, for Jane. She had a nervous breakdown, and was killed in a burning building, but somehow circumstances seemed a bit suspicious. Jane had succeeded in getting published before Alex, who became jealous.
Years later they all met again to celebrate the re-burial of Jane, who had gained posthumous fame. Alex had written a falsified account of what happened that time in the 70s with her and their friends. Alex finally had his comeuppance from the most unlikely source, at the end of the book, something you'd have to read without my letting on who.
It is a story of when these four having a stoned time working on their small magazine, in some late 70s, living in some English countryside. It should have been very idyllic, all the drugs and sex. But things started to go wrong when an American Diane, armed with her camera, and a pair of destructive Germans, appeared on the scene. With Diane following them and filming everything, the Germans wreaked havoc during a party, in which they secretly drugged the wine, causing mass hallucination and destruction of properties, of historical papers, books and paintings.
Afterwards things went form bad to worse, for Jane. She had a nervous breakdown, and was killed in a burning building, but somehow circumstances seemed a bit suspicious. Jane had succeeded in getting published before Alex, who became jealous.
Years later they all met again to celebrate the re-burial of Jane, who had gained posthumous fame. Alex had written a falsified account of what happened that time in the 70s with her and their friends. Alex finally had his comeuppance from the most unlikely source, at the end of the book, something you'd have to read without my letting on who.
August 6, 2013
Not such an easy read the first pages. But gripping as you move on - reminding me in some ways of 'Catcher in the Rye'.
March 20, 2022
A lot of readers complain this is slow to start and it is. But I didn’t mind as there were intriguing characters and an excellent sense of place. Atmosphere. I’m always a sucker for that. The author is a renowned poet so there are some lovely turns of phrase. You have to tolerate a few pages about the fictional local poet and what drove him, but it all contributes to the story and the lingering sense of unease. The villain is more despicable than any Bond foe while the heroine is tragically complicated. Throw in a busy and unexpected ending and you’ve got the makings of a great story. It was a solid 4 star but then the ending elevated it. It’s just a shame this is his only book.
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June 29, 2025Difficult to get in to and couldn’t fathom what had inspired the author. Excellent ending did not see it coming at all !
January 27, 2012
This was a real disappointment. I got 25% in and absolutely nothing of any note had happened, I hadn't warmed to any of the characters and I found that I simply didn't have the patience to wade through it any further.
May 12, 2017
Why poets shouldn't write novels.
May 28, 2014
Really enjoyed the ending
February 2, 2015
Starting well but then I just so lost interest in the characters I didn't care about them
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews