Connections made over age-old divide
By Roy Hoffman |
May 12, 2013, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FROM the knowing grandmother in the novel "Tending to Virginia" to the failing mother stressing out her daughter in the short story "Going Away Shoes," elderly characters have always played their parts in Jill McCorkle's small-town, intergenerational fiction. But the "manly voice" with "pipes and whistles in his sound," as Shakespeare put it, reverberates in its own distinctive fashion in the retirement home setting of McCorkle's new novel, where the yoga class finds "a whole roomful of old folks breathing deeply and chanting - one sounding like a sewing machine and another a squirrel."
In its quiet way, "Life After Life," McCorkle's sixth novel, is a daring venture - an attempt to tell a big story inside a tiny orbit. At the Pine Haven retirement center in the author's familiar, fictional Fulton, North Carolina, dinner is finished early, which is fine with sunny Sadie, "who likes to watch 'Jeopardy' in her pajamas." Other occupants are less delighted with the place: crusty Toby, a retired schoolteacher, repairs to her room, "haunted by little past moments," and Rachel, once a lawyer up north, sniffs at Southern manners and sweet tea, succumbing to "a wave of time sickness" for her former life.
Poet of the everyday
The prospect of spending hours among these people might seem tedious to a reader ("Who in the hell wants dinner at 5:30?" as feisty Rachel complains), but McCorkle is a poet of the everyday. The 26-year-old house beautician, CJ, asks residents, "Does that feel good?" while rubbing lotion into their "old worn-out feet. Some call them Pat and Mike. Some call them the old dogs. One calls them her little tootsies."
McCorkle wisely seeks out connection, gnarled hands reaching for others as the clock ticks down.
Clearly, McCorkle is after more than final dramas. The novel's title hints at resurrection, but don't mistake "Life After Life" for a peek at heaven in the classic sense. For each character reaching Shakespeare's seventh age, "sans everything," McCorkle offers a heightened, stream-of-consciousness journey, punctuated with a last glance backward. But the real successes in this novel are found in simple, often luminous moments this side of the great divide - when, for example, Stanley puts Herb Alpert's "Taste of Honey" on his antique stereo, welcoming Rachel into his arms. "We can dance to this one," she says. "We can pretend it's 1965."
In its quiet way, "Life After Life," McCorkle's sixth novel, is a daring venture - an attempt to tell a big story inside a tiny orbit. At the Pine Haven retirement center in the author's familiar, fictional Fulton, North Carolina, dinner is finished early, which is fine with sunny Sadie, "who likes to watch 'Jeopardy' in her pajamas." Other occupants are less delighted with the place: crusty Toby, a retired schoolteacher, repairs to her room, "haunted by little past moments," and Rachel, once a lawyer up north, sniffs at Southern manners and sweet tea, succumbing to "a wave of time sickness" for her former life.
Poet of the everyday
The prospect of spending hours among these people might seem tedious to a reader ("Who in the hell wants dinner at 5:30?" as feisty Rachel complains), but McCorkle is a poet of the everyday. The 26-year-old house beautician, CJ, asks residents, "Does that feel good?" while rubbing lotion into their "old worn-out feet. Some call them Pat and Mike. Some call them the old dogs. One calls them her little tootsies."
McCorkle wisely seeks out connection, gnarled hands reaching for others as the clock ticks down.
Clearly, McCorkle is after more than final dramas. The novel's title hints at resurrection, but don't mistake "Life After Life" for a peek at heaven in the classic sense. For each character reaching Shakespeare's seventh age, "sans everything," McCorkle offers a heightened, stream-of-consciousness journey, punctuated with a last glance backward. But the real successes in this novel are found in simple, often luminous moments this side of the great divide - when, for example, Stanley puts Herb Alpert's "Taste of Honey" on his antique stereo, welcoming Rachel into his arms. "We can dance to this one," she says. "We can pretend it's 1965."
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