Studies in the Hereafter

by Sean Bernard

A disillusioned office bureaucrat in the afterlife has come to realize that maybe heaven isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Bored by the endless routine of work, golf, and vegan food, he finds his one saving grace in his Field Studies: detailed reports he compiles on the living in order to determine their best fit in his world. While working on his 62nd Field Study, he begins to fall for Tetty, a detached Basque-American beauty living in Nevada, while struggling to understand what she sees in Carmelo, a clumsy scholar obsessed with the elusive Basque culture. When people start going missing from heaven for no apparent reason, the narrator learns that Field Study 62 may hold the key to explaining the disappearances.

Genres: Fantasy

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2015

About the author

Much of the following is true:

Sean Bernard is: a cheerful sort; a member of a secret organization hatched in a southwestern city in the fall of 1993; author of the collection Desert sonorous (March 2015), winner of the Juniper Prize for Fiction, as well as the novel Studies in the Hereafter (August 2015), a thickly veiled novel set in heaven; a winner with a can-do attitude but an inconsistent backhand; reliant on various supplements for reasons that cannot be disclosed; the editor of Prism Review; the best durned creative writing teacher a student could ask for; wanted.

Reviews

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the great pleasure of attending a reading by Bernard shortly after the release of his book; I was even able to spend a little time talking with him and mustered up enough courage to ask for a signature in my then-purchased copy. I hadn't heard him read more than one or two paragraphs from one or two chapters, out of order mind you, and I was hooked. The author's simple, clean writing style and deadpan, often sarcastic voice blend with his all-vegan-only-golf-and-public-access-television bureaucratic heaven for a witty, fresh take on the afterlife with a twist at the end. Bernard gets you thinking philosophy without realizing it because you're too busy laughing and too engrossed the subtle mysteries he creates in a place that, while bland, ought to be perfect otherwise.

Studies is a wonderful debut novel. My only wish is the same as the author's: That there had been more of a discussion, more time for one, on the periodic table of elements that appears at the front of the book. Easily the newest and most enticing part of the vision of the afterlife Studies paints, I'll have to let what little there is in the book do the explaining; it'd be a shame to give away any of this book's secrets.

[Doctor_dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book in a way I don't think I have any other book I've read. Usually, I get immersed in the characters, become them almost, experience their lives and truths, but in this one, there is always a feeling of being observer, that the words were crafted for me, written by an author only glimpsed through the dark veil of his story. Yes, I was also invested in the characters and wanted desperately for a good ending for all of them, as one does. But the author leaves other hints throughout, like he's reading my mind at times: "I like to watch the human mind try to tell a tale, to try and understand the odd motives behind it." I felt that the author was Carmelo and Tetty and all the characters all at once, and I was watching his life crafted before me. And it was also my life. This was an intense and enjoyable novel, and I'm going to carry it with me for a while.

[Siel Ju · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Most people’s lives are like memos from a copy machine: Mass produced, mass distributed, crumpled, tossed in a bin.” In Sean Bernard’s novel, the afterlife is kind of a lot like regular life — with work, home, and awkward human relationships — except everyone has wings and no one dies. The protagonist of this novel has a job trying to get to the essence of people’s characters while they’re still living, so they can be placed in a fitting role in their afterlives. At heart, this is a surprising love story.

[Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a charming, inventive novel. It is funny and poignant. At the same time, it is quite thought-provoking—raising some of the largest questions about life, death, and meaning. And then there’s this wonderful twist involving the Basques. What a charming novel.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basque culture in the US fascinates me. There's a running gag throughout the novel about the dullness of golf. And the afterlife's shining new beacon of hope is learning how to kayak. Of course I loved this book.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intensely emotional book, one of the best I've read in a while. The characters are humanly flawed in ways that hit painfully close to home, and I think will for many. A beautiful ending. Even if you see it coming you aren't prepared for it.

[Kirsten Eckert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not at all what I expected - and wasn't sure I was going to make it all the way through. Pleasant enough distraction.