Afterlife is the new novel by Julia Alvarez, her first adult novel in many years, if you haven’t read In the Time of the Butterflies, you should! Here she writes about Antonia, a just retired English professor in a small Vermont town (Alvarez taught at Middlebury) who is grieving the sudden loss of her husband, the town’s beloved doctor. While her Dominican sisters are staging an intervention for one sister they believe has lost her mind, Antonia finds herself drawn into helping one of the local illegal immigrants who needs care and shelter for his pregnant teenage girlfriend.

The novel is brief, yet packed with emotion. Not the typical Latin American storytelling, long sagas told from many different points of view, here Alvarez seems to be trying out a new form, and although I did find myself wanting more, it works. A beautiful new novel by a wonderful writer.