''The Afterlife and Other Stories'' is a collection of 22 works of short fiction and a novella by

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...

. The volume was published in 1994 by

Alfred A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

. The short story "The Sandstone Farmhouse" included in the collection won First Prize at the O. Henry Award competition in 1991. Twelve of the stories appearing in ''The Afterlife'' were listed under "Uncollected Stories" by Robert M. Luscher in 1993.

Stories

The stories first appeared in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', unless indicated otherwise. * "The Afterlife" (September 15, 1986) * "Wildlife" ( ''Esquire'', August 1987) * "Conjunction" (July 27, 1987) * "Brother Grasshopper" (December 14, 1987) * "The Journey to the Dead" (May 23, 1988) * "The Man Who Became a Soprano" (December 26, 1988) * "Short Easter" (March 27, 1989) * "A Sandstone Farmhouse" (June 11, 1990) * "The Other Side of the Street" (October 28, 1991) * "Aperto, Chiuso" (''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

'', January 1991 ppears under the heading "George and Vivian" in the collection * "Tristan and Iseult" (December 3, 1990) * "Farrell’s Caddy" (February 25, 1991) * "The Rumor" (''Esquire'', June 1991) * "Falling Asleep Up North" (May 6, 1991) * "The Brown Chest" (

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

, May 1992) * "His Mother Inside Him" (April 20, 1992) * "Bluebeard in Ireland" (Playboy, January 1993 ppears under the heading "George and Vivian" in the collection * "Baby’s First Step" (July 27, 1992) * "Playing With Dynamite" (October 5, 1992) * "The Black Room" (September 6, 1993) * "Cruise" (April 4, 1994) * "Grandparenting" (February 21, 1994)

Reception

Jay Parini Jay Parini (born April 2, 1948) is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels, poetry, biography, screenplays and criticism. He has published novels about Leo Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, Paul the Apostle, and Herman Melville. Early l ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' offers a mixed appraisal of the collection, describing Updike's style as "fluent to a fault, rich in metaphor, rising to exquisite heights in places, toppling elsewhere into preciousness and affectation." Parini adds: "John Updike has rarely written more affectingly, more from the center of his being. Several of these stories will, I suspect, enjoy the kind of afterlife granted to few writers in any time or place." Michael Harris of ''

The Los Angeles Times ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' declares that Updike's literary prowess undiminished in this collection: In her work on Updike,

Biljana Dojčinović Biljana Dojčinović-Nešić ( sr-Cyrl, Биљана Дојчиновић; born 1963) is a Serbian feminist academic, who specialises in Serbian literature and Gender Studies, and who co-founded the Center for Women's Studies in Belgrade. She is ...

has argued that his short story collection ''The Afterlife and Other Stories'' is a pivotal work that demonstrates a change in his writing on feminism.

Footnotes

Sources

*Carduff, Christopher. 2013. ''Note on the Texts from John Updike: Collected Later Stories''. Christopher Carduff, editor.

The Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...

. pp. 948–958 * Harris, Michael. 1994
"Facing the Realities of Aging, Death: The Afterlife and Other Stories"
''

'', November 14, 1994. Retrieved 21 March 2023. *Luscher, Robert M. 1993. ''John Updike: A Study of the Short Fiction''. Twayne Publishers, New York. *Olster, Stacey. 2006. ''The Cambridge Companion to John Updike''.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, Cambridge. (paperback) * Parini, Jay. 1994
"All His Wives Are Mothers"
''

''. November 6, 1994. Retrieved 21 March 2023. {{DEFAULTSORT:Afterlife and Other Stories, The 1994 short story collections Short story collections by John Updike