What do you think?
Rate this book
The Afterlives
A love story that asks: what happens after we die? The debut novel from National Book Award 5 Under 35 Winner and author of the “ridiculously good” (New York Times) collection Hall of Small Mammals.
Jim Byrd died. Technically. For a few minutes. The diagnosis: heart attack at age thirty. Revived with no memory of any tunnels, lights, or angels, Jim wonders what—if anything—awaits us on the other side.
Then a ghost shows up. Maybe. Jim and his new wife, Annie, find themselves tangling with holograms, psychics, messages from the beyond, and a machine that connects the living and the dead. As Jim and Annie journey through history and fumble through faith, they confront the specter of loss that looms for anyone who dares to fall in love. Funny, fiercely original, and gracefully moving, The Afterlives will haunt you. In a good way.
Jim Byrd died. Technically. For a few minutes. The diagnosis: heart attack at age thirty. Revived with no memory of any tunnels, lights, or angels, Jim wonders what—if anything—awaits us on the other side.
Then a ghost shows up. Maybe. Jim and his new wife, Annie, find themselves tangling with holograms, psychics, messages from the beyond, and a machine that connects the living and the dead. As Jim and Annie journey through history and fumble through faith, they confront the specter of loss that looms for anyone who dares to fall in love. Funny, fiercely original, and gracefully moving, The Afterlives will haunt you. In a good way.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 8, 2018
About the author
Thomas Pierce
7 books72 followersThomas Pierce is the author of the novel, The Afterlives (Riverhead 2018), and the short story collection, Hall of Small Mammals. A recipient of the 5 Under 35 award from the National Book Foundation, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Zoetrope, The Oxford American, and Virginia Quarterly Review and anthologized in
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014
and
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015
. He has reported for NPR and National Geographic Magazine. Born and raised in South Carolina, he recieved his M.F.A. from the University of Virginia as Poe/Faulkner Fellow and currently lives near Charlottesville, VA with his wife and daughters.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 320 reviews
March 26, 2018
“ Buddha and Moses and all the noses
From narrow to flat
Had to stand in the line
Just to glimpse the divine
What’cha think about that?
Well, it seems like our fate
To suffer and wait for the knowledge we seek
It’s all His design
No one cuts in the line
No one here likes a sneak
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
-- The Afterlife, Paul Simon, Songwriter: Paul Simon
”Exit heartbeat.
Exit breath.
Exit every mood, every memory.
Exit you.
To where?”
”First, their voices – the nurse’s, the doctor’s, my parents’.”
Pulled from death’s grasp, Jim Byrd hears the doctor asking for his full name and if he knew, pointing to the television on the wall, what it was for. Momentarily wondering why the doctor doesn’t know these things, a young nurse explains that he’d been discovered at the bottom of the stairs in his building by a man who then proceeded to give him CPR until the paramedics arrived.
”’If not for him,’ she said, ‘you’d probably still be dead.’”
”A misfire, my cardiologist called it.
‘But was I really dead?’
‘Clinically.’
“Dying, he clarified, was a process, not a single event. It was like a wave pulling back from the shore.”
”You died, and then you died a little more, and then just a little bit more until you were all the way completely dead – or not, depending.”
Jim Byrd died, was brought back to life, and his heart was now connected to a device that regulated and monitored his heart – HeartNet – an implanted defibrillator, which he can track with his phone, and that will send him alerts when your heart fails to beat on its own.
This is the story of Jim Byrd, his life and those in his life, his parents, his wife, and a house with a history. A fire. A death. An interest in connecting with the departed, a woman named Sally Zinker, a professor at UNC, a physicist who is focused on connecting with those who are no longer among the living. There is a love story or two, the “investigation” into traveling to visit those in the ‘Afterlife,’ but that is almost just a device to connect us to the idea of life after life. The connection of the here and now to the always present, forever view of mankind and the heavens, but not in a religious sense, or even so much a “ghostly” presence. More in the eternal nature of things, but in an almost playful sense: life after life.
I don’t know what I expected from this, except I was skeptically hopeful. I’d wanted to read this since I own a copy of it, a gift, and I felt somewhat obligated to read it. It was a bit of a surprise, although I can’t say that I gushingly loved this, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it overall.
Jim Byrd had experienced death. Had, in a sense, been plagued by the idea that he didn’t recall experiencing any angels, harps, gates…any… anything. As he grows older, as the world changes, as technology takes larger leaps into our lives he is haunted by the thought: What if this is all there is? Why didn’t he see anything? Or, perhaps… does he just not remember what he saw? When his father dies, he keeps waiting for some sign, some way to find out more. To talk with his father once more, to know what is …there.
There’s a bit of everything in this, at least that’s how it felt at times, love stories and mysteries with everyday life as well. Occasionally there’s a lovely, if fleeting, glimpse at some of these everyday moments, which I enjoyed.
”His suitcase, on the bed, needs packing. It can wait. Everything can wait. The curtain, flitting in the breeze, continues its flirtation with the end of his cigarette.”
”I wanted to appreciate every aspect of this moment, to preserve it, to live in it forever. Annie’s light wheezing breath, the dance of the curtain across the AC vent in the floor, the clock’s red flashing colon that held the hours from collapsing into minutes.”
Many thanks, once again, to the Public Library system, and the many Librarians that manage, organize and keep it running, for the loan of this book!
From narrow to flat
Had to stand in the line
Just to glimpse the divine
What’cha think about that?
Well, it seems like our fate
To suffer and wait for the knowledge we seek
It’s all His design
No one cuts in the line
No one here likes a sneak
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
You got to fill out a form first
And then you wait in the line
-- The Afterlife, Paul Simon, Songwriter: Paul Simon
”Exit heartbeat.
Exit breath.
Exit every mood, every memory.
Exit you.
To where?”
”First, their voices – the nurse’s, the doctor’s, my parents’.”
Pulled from death’s grasp, Jim Byrd hears the doctor asking for his full name and if he knew, pointing to the television on the wall, what it was for. Momentarily wondering why the doctor doesn’t know these things, a young nurse explains that he’d been discovered at the bottom of the stairs in his building by a man who then proceeded to give him CPR until the paramedics arrived.
”’If not for him,’ she said, ‘you’d probably still be dead.’”
”A misfire, my cardiologist called it.
‘But was I really dead?’
‘Clinically.’
“Dying, he clarified, was a process, not a single event. It was like a wave pulling back from the shore.”
”You died, and then you died a little more, and then just a little bit more until you were all the way completely dead – or not, depending.”
Jim Byrd died, was brought back to life, and his heart was now connected to a device that regulated and monitored his heart – HeartNet – an implanted defibrillator, which he can track with his phone, and that will send him alerts when your heart fails to beat on its own.
This is the story of Jim Byrd, his life and those in his life, his parents, his wife, and a house with a history. A fire. A death. An interest in connecting with the departed, a woman named Sally Zinker, a professor at UNC, a physicist who is focused on connecting with those who are no longer among the living. There is a love story or two, the “investigation” into traveling to visit those in the ‘Afterlife,’ but that is almost just a device to connect us to the idea of life after life. The connection of the here and now to the always present, forever view of mankind and the heavens, but not in a religious sense, or even so much a “ghostly” presence. More in the eternal nature of things, but in an almost playful sense: life after life.
I don’t know what I expected from this, except I was skeptically hopeful. I’d wanted to read this since I own a copy of it, a gift, and I felt somewhat obligated to read it. It was a bit of a surprise, although I can’t say that I gushingly loved this, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it overall.
Jim Byrd had experienced death. Had, in a sense, been plagued by the idea that he didn’t recall experiencing any angels, harps, gates…any… anything. As he grows older, as the world changes, as technology takes larger leaps into our lives he is haunted by the thought: What if this is all there is? Why didn’t he see anything? Or, perhaps… does he just not remember what he saw? When his father dies, he keeps waiting for some sign, some way to find out more. To talk with his father once more, to know what is …there.
There’s a bit of everything in this, at least that’s how it felt at times, love stories and mysteries with everyday life as well. Occasionally there’s a lovely, if fleeting, glimpse at some of these everyday moments, which I enjoyed.
”His suitcase, on the bed, needs packing. It can wait. Everything can wait. The curtain, flitting in the breeze, continues its flirtation with the end of his cigarette.”
”I wanted to appreciate every aspect of this moment, to preserve it, to live in it forever. Annie’s light wheezing breath, the dance of the curtain across the AC vent in the floor, the clock’s red flashing colon that held the hours from collapsing into minutes.”
Many thanks, once again, to the Public Library system, and the many Librarians that manage, organize and keep it running, for the loan of this book!
October 20, 2021
Part ghost story, part love story, part philosophical/scientific time-travel mishmash, Thomas Pierce's The Afterlives has a little something for everyone. If you like reading plot books that highlight relationships, or wonder a lot about theories of death and existence and "daisy holes" (as they're called here) separating present from past from future, eureka! You've found your book!
For me, a fun pleasure read, which I don't often treat myself to. I like my books a bit chewier, as a rule, but sometimes your jaw gets sore and you need a smoothie (hopefully made with power greens). I think it was a bit fat at 363 pp., but I'm always in favor of scissors (except when it comes to my own writing, ha ha).
And Pierce did give us some quiet, descriptive moments, such as this:
"She slept peacefully, her warm rump turned toward me, the blanket halfway up her leg, a burn mark on the sheet from the dryer. Everything felt significant, fleeting.
“I wanted to appreciate every aspect of this moment, to preserve it, to live in it forever. Annie’s light wheezing breath, the dance of the curtain across the AC vent on the floor, the clock’s red flashing colon that held the hours from collapsing into the minutes. I was in agony. I was crying. Sobbing, actually, face pressed to the pillow, the heat of my face rebounding off the fabric."
See? Pierce seems to be saying. I can do description, too. But mostly it was storyline and train stops for plots and subplots. Get on, get off. Flip pages. What happens next? Who dies? Does anyone die? And how do we communicate with the dead? And do we want to communicate with the dead?
Here, it seems, the answer is yes, every time. Yes, yes, yes. Life after life after life. You're going to need your Dramamine, in other words. The cover should serve as a hint.
For me, a fun pleasure read, which I don't often treat myself to. I like my books a bit chewier, as a rule, but sometimes your jaw gets sore and you need a smoothie (hopefully made with power greens). I think it was a bit fat at 363 pp., but I'm always in favor of scissors (except when it comes to my own writing, ha ha).
And Pierce did give us some quiet, descriptive moments, such as this:
"She slept peacefully, her warm rump turned toward me, the blanket halfway up her leg, a burn mark on the sheet from the dryer. Everything felt significant, fleeting.
“I wanted to appreciate every aspect of this moment, to preserve it, to live in it forever. Annie’s light wheezing breath, the dance of the curtain across the AC vent on the floor, the clock’s red flashing colon that held the hours from collapsing into the minutes. I was in agony. I was crying. Sobbing, actually, face pressed to the pillow, the heat of my face rebounding off the fabric."
See? Pierce seems to be saying. I can do description, too. But mostly it was storyline and train stops for plots and subplots. Get on, get off. Flip pages. What happens next? Who dies? Does anyone die? And how do we communicate with the dead? And do we want to communicate with the dead?
Here, it seems, the answer is yes, every time. Yes, yes, yes. Life after life after life. You're going to need your Dramamine, in other words. The cover should serve as a hint.
January 28, 2018
This is a peculiar book, and I liked it but I'm not quite sure what to make of it. From the start I found the narrator offputting, but whenever I thought I might as well give up, something hooked me and pulled me back in – a story about a ghost on a staircase that's titled 'The Tale of the Dog on Fire'; an organisation called 'the Church of Search' which has holograms giving inspirational talks; historical chapters that move back and forth through a character's life as though time is not linear but a picture book to be flipped through.
The Afterlives is set in the not-too-distant future, hence the holograms and the app Jim Byrd uses to monitor his heart after a brief 'death' from cardiac arrest. In the aftermath of this incident, Jim reconnects with his high school girlfriend, starts attending church and develops a preoccupation with a local ghost story. A restaurant in Jim's hometown – specifically, a particular spot on its staircase – is home to a number of unexplained phenomena, which he learns about when he visits in his capacity as a loan assessor. (An anomaly in the restaurant's accounts turns out to be the owner trying to exorcise the ghost, or ghosts.)
The occasional historical chapters tell the story of the building's former residents/possible phantoms, Clara and Robert Lennox, and their families. Surprisingly, these are among the best parts of the book. Pierce uses a brilliantly effective structure here, moving swiftly and non-chronologically through the characters' histories but making us aware, via the subjects' apparent awareness of their timeline-jumping, that these are perhaps more than memories (a nod to the book's title). He also teases out unexpected connections between the historical and contemporary characters in so subtle a style that I didn't see them coming – yet they made perfect sense.
Unfortunately, there's this whole dull plot strand about Jim's relationship. This is a personal quibble I have with lots of fiction, but in this case it's exacerbated by the characterisation. Annie, Jim's girlfriend (later wife), is given about as much personality as a blank sheet of paper. We know Jim is attracted to/has feelings for her, she's a widow, and she has a daughter – who is for some reason named 'Fisher' – and that's about it. We are told facts about her, but rarely, if ever, do they seem to fit together and constitute a believable person. (Jim, meanwhile, isn't especially likeable, but he's fleshed out enough that I did feel emotionally invested in what happened to him by the time it... happened.)
This is a novel of the fantastic – from ghostly presences to futuristic tech – yet it's grounded in the banal, creating an oddly folksy strain of science fiction. Critics' reviews of The Afterlives tend to make it sound like it has a solid plot, suggesting Jim goes on some kind of quest for hope or meaning, but when you're reading it, it feels more like a meandering meditation on mortality (alliteration unintentional, but quite fitting).
I received an advance review copy of The Afterlives from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
The Afterlives is set in the not-too-distant future, hence the holograms and the app Jim Byrd uses to monitor his heart after a brief 'death' from cardiac arrest. In the aftermath of this incident, Jim reconnects with his high school girlfriend, starts attending church and develops a preoccupation with a local ghost story. A restaurant in Jim's hometown – specifically, a particular spot on its staircase – is home to a number of unexplained phenomena, which he learns about when he visits in his capacity as a loan assessor. (An anomaly in the restaurant's accounts turns out to be the owner trying to exorcise the ghost, or ghosts.)
The occasional historical chapters tell the story of the building's former residents/possible phantoms, Clara and Robert Lennox, and their families. Surprisingly, these are among the best parts of the book. Pierce uses a brilliantly effective structure here, moving swiftly and non-chronologically through the characters' histories but making us aware, via the subjects' apparent awareness of their timeline-jumping, that these are perhaps more than memories (a nod to the book's title). He also teases out unexpected connections between the historical and contemporary characters in so subtle a style that I didn't see them coming – yet they made perfect sense.
Unfortunately, there's this whole dull plot strand about Jim's relationship. This is a personal quibble I have with lots of fiction, but in this case it's exacerbated by the characterisation. Annie, Jim's girlfriend (later wife), is given about as much personality as a blank sheet of paper. We know Jim is attracted to/has feelings for her, she's a widow, and she has a daughter – who is for some reason named 'Fisher' – and that's about it. We are told facts about her, but rarely, if ever, do they seem to fit together and constitute a believable person. (Jim, meanwhile, isn't especially likeable, but he's fleshed out enough that I did feel emotionally invested in what happened to him by the time it... happened.)
This is a novel of the fantastic – from ghostly presences to futuristic tech – yet it's grounded in the banal, creating an oddly folksy strain of science fiction. Critics' reviews of The Afterlives tend to make it sound like it has a solid plot, suggesting Jim goes on some kind of quest for hope or meaning, but when you're reading it, it feels more like a meandering meditation on mortality (alliteration unintentional, but quite fitting).
I received an advance review copy of The Afterlives from the publisher through Edelweiss.
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
January 26, 2018
Following a near-death experience during which he technically died for several minutes, 33-year-old Jim Byrd becomes hyper-aware of his own mortality. Death seems to be everywhere. There's a ghost haunting a restaurant owned by one of his clients. He even lives in a retirement town where "old people come to die."
Consumed by his uncertainty about what happens in the afterlife (and convinced from his own experience that the answer is nothing) Jim and his wife Annie search for proof. They learn about an elusive physicist named Sally Zinker who believes that human beings only 93% exist in this world and has supposedly created a machine that allows the living to connect with the dead. But will they find the answers they so desperately want, or merely end up more uncertain than ever?
The Afterlives is a smart, funny and imaginative work of speculative fiction written for those of us who battle the existential dread of knowing that one day we and everyone we love will die—those of us who don't have the comfort of a firm belief in any sort of afterlife.
The technology and science-fiction aspects of this book are intriguing and thoughtful, and the parts about marriage and love are insightful and relatable. Pierce took on an ambitious topic and handled it with deftness and heart. If you're the type of person who likes to think about the big questions in life, I think you'll find this a satisfying read.
Consumed by his uncertainty about what happens in the afterlife (and convinced from his own experience that the answer is nothing) Jim and his wife Annie search for proof. They learn about an elusive physicist named Sally Zinker who believes that human beings only 93% exist in this world and has supposedly created a machine that allows the living to connect with the dead. But will they find the answers they so desperately want, or merely end up more uncertain than ever?
The Afterlives is a smart, funny and imaginative work of speculative fiction written for those of us who battle the existential dread of knowing that one day we and everyone we love will die—those of us who don't have the comfort of a firm belief in any sort of afterlife.
The technology and science-fiction aspects of this book are intriguing and thoughtful, and the parts about marriage and love are insightful and relatable. Pierce took on an ambitious topic and handled it with deftness and heart. If you're the type of person who likes to think about the big questions in life, I think you'll find this a satisfying read.
October 4, 2017
I work in an independent book shop and we have countless ARCs at our disposal. I'm always looking for an interesting read by an author I have never heard of. I found a little gem in this one. This is a quiet, but very engaging, story with likable and believable characters. There is also a ghost story within the story that stands on its own. After a near death experience, the main character becomes obsessed with the afterlife and what it may hold for all of us. It's a very thought provoking book. I'll keep Thomas Pierce on my radar.
January 25, 2018
Thomas Pierce approaches the interplay of technology and immortality with considerable subtlety in his debut novel, "The Afterlives." The story opens as 33-year-old Jim Byrd is revived from sudden cardiac arrest. He is happy to be back but dismayed that during the minutes he was technically dead he “saw nothing. No light, no tunnels, no angels.” That would seem to snuff out prospects for the great beyond. Yet Jim, a loan officer, ends up approving the mortgage for an old building that may be haunted. Pierce, one of the National Book Foundation’s recent 5 Under 35 Award winners, wanders wherever the spirit moves him, which may frustrate readers looking for drama, but I was enchanted by his thoughtful ruminations and wry comments about church and spirituality. Intercalary chapters about the haunted house’s original residents vibrate with ectoplastic energy. Pierce is particularly unsettling when he describes. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
September 11, 2018
The Afterlives
has a quirky, off-beat premise that caught my attention when I read the synopsis. Unfortunately, the premise was the most interesting thing about it.
** Spoilers ahead **
After a near death experience, thirty-three year old Jim Byrd embarks on a quest to find the meaning of life.
Is there an afterlife? Do we live on after death? Does it matter?
These deep, existential questions fall flat when we meet Jim Byrd, a boring, dull, bland white male who lacks wit, talent or any discernible quality that makes him interesting.
He pretty much coasts through life working a meaningless job and meets an old girlfriend at a restaurant. Eventually, they marry.
Interspersed with Jim's recounts of his daily routine are vignettes of a couple from over fifty years ago that experienced a traumatic event in a home that was later converted into the restaurant Jim will later visit in the future as part of his duties as a loan officer at a bank.
This couple's unhappy marriage has permeated the core and structure of this building and infused it with a supernatural quality that continues to affect residents or anyone who comes in contact with this building.
When I picked The Afterlives up from the library, I noticed it was categorized as romance but that doesn't feel right.
Just because Jim pontificates about his wife and marriage and their quest on searching for the existence of an afterlife does not make this a love story.
In my opinion, this story is more about the subject of love; the love that comes from the connections we make with our family, our friends, our colleagues, people we respect and admire, not the romanticized and/or sexual love we feel for a partner.
The problem with this book is that it meanders. I'm not sure what its trying to say. The writing is good but wasted here on various story threads that lack cohesiveness.
If the author had focused on the supernatural quality of the building and what it may mean for the existence of an afterlife, the story would have been more grounded.
Instead, we get side stories about this unhappy couple alongside Jim's unimaginative outlook on life despite his near death experience. As their marriage progresses, science and technology develop at a rapid pace, so much so that it is difficult to differentiate between reality and surreality.
When Jim and his wife meet a female scientist who has devoted her life and career to proving the existence of an afterlife, they are both confronted with personal issues from the past; Jim and the loss of his father, his wife's loss of her first husband, and what it means to go on after we lose the ones we love and care about.
This book had such a fascinating idea but it was bogged down with a weak main character and too many tangents about minor characters I did not care for nor could I understand why we were given these small histories about them in the first place.
Seeking answers to the meaning of life and why we are here in this world is a fundamental part of living, of growing, of evolving and of the way we process our own mortality.
But as I read on, it felt like the author was unsure of where to go with his story.
Is it about ghosts?
Is it about marriage? Family? Death?
Or is it about none of this?
People die, we die and life goes on?
The lack of a strong narrative focus created confusion on how I should approach the book as I read it.
I was hoping this book was about ghosts and the supernatural but it ended up as a boring recap of characters I neither liked nor identified with interspersed with brief reflections about life, living and marriage.
I really enjoyed Mr. Pierce's writing.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for how I felt after reading The Afterlives.
** Spoilers ahead **
After a near death experience, thirty-three year old Jim Byrd embarks on a quest to find the meaning of life.
Is there an afterlife? Do we live on after death? Does it matter?
These deep, existential questions fall flat when we meet Jim Byrd, a boring, dull, bland white male who lacks wit, talent or any discernible quality that makes him interesting.
He pretty much coasts through life working a meaningless job and meets an old girlfriend at a restaurant. Eventually, they marry.
Interspersed with Jim's recounts of his daily routine are vignettes of a couple from over fifty years ago that experienced a traumatic event in a home that was later converted into the restaurant Jim will later visit in the future as part of his duties as a loan officer at a bank.
This couple's unhappy marriage has permeated the core and structure of this building and infused it with a supernatural quality that continues to affect residents or anyone who comes in contact with this building.
When I picked The Afterlives up from the library, I noticed it was categorized as romance but that doesn't feel right.
Just because Jim pontificates about his wife and marriage and their quest on searching for the existence of an afterlife does not make this a love story.
In my opinion, this story is more about the subject of love; the love that comes from the connections we make with our family, our friends, our colleagues, people we respect and admire, not the romanticized and/or sexual love we feel for a partner.
The problem with this book is that it meanders. I'm not sure what its trying to say. The writing is good but wasted here on various story threads that lack cohesiveness.
If the author had focused on the supernatural quality of the building and what it may mean for the existence of an afterlife, the story would have been more grounded.
Instead, we get side stories about this unhappy couple alongside Jim's unimaginative outlook on life despite his near death experience. As their marriage progresses, science and technology develop at a rapid pace, so much so that it is difficult to differentiate between reality and surreality.
When Jim and his wife meet a female scientist who has devoted her life and career to proving the existence of an afterlife, they are both confronted with personal issues from the past; Jim and the loss of his father, his wife's loss of her first husband, and what it means to go on after we lose the ones we love and care about.
This book had such a fascinating idea but it was bogged down with a weak main character and too many tangents about minor characters I did not care for nor could I understand why we were given these small histories about them in the first place.
Seeking answers to the meaning of life and why we are here in this world is a fundamental part of living, of growing, of evolving and of the way we process our own mortality.
But as I read on, it felt like the author was unsure of where to go with his story.
Is it about ghosts?
Is it about marriage? Family? Death?
Or is it about none of this?
People die, we die and life goes on?
The lack of a strong narrative focus created confusion on how I should approach the book as I read it.
I was hoping this book was about ghosts and the supernatural but it ended up as a boring recap of characters I neither liked nor identified with interspersed with brief reflections about life, living and marriage.
I really enjoyed Mr. Pierce's writing.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for how I felt after reading The Afterlives.
October 9, 2017
Jim's new life begins when he almost dies, a life in which he finds love, hears a ghost, meets a psychic, and tries to find out what happens after we die. His journey leads him through life, death, and in between, but for Jim, the questions keep coming. What does it mean to lose? Or to move on after loss? Pierce has written a brilliantly imaginative and beautiful novel about the big, impossible questions, fear of the unknown, and the people who keep us from spiraling into the darkness.
September 29, 2017
This novel defies description. It's a ghost story. It's futuristic. It's a love story. It's science fiction. It’s a mix of all of that and somehow comes together into a cohesive story that I really enjoyed.
August 24, 2020
Thomas Pierce has a new fan. I really enjoyed his novel The Afterlives. Jim Byrd has a heart condition that leads to him dying for several minutes and then being revived.
The book centers around his search for answers to the question is their an afterlife. Wonderful characters and engaging writing.
The book centers around his search for answers to the question is their an afterlife. Wonderful characters and engaging writing.
September 9, 2018
I fell victim to strong marketing. The main character is dull, the story is boring, and the dialogue is adjective heavy. Reads like a YA novel. Case in point in why I plan to be much more leery about new releases moving forward.
March 2, 2023
This book is why I love to read.
October 10, 2017
Thomas Pierce brings all the components of a good story to the table: humor, empathy, and ingenuity. I lapped up this creative and touching novel, flying through it as I was flying home over the Pacific Ocean. Jim and Annie build a life together and wander through a future that does not feel too far away from us now. I'll be thinking about them and the elements of their story for days and weeks to come. The future of American fiction, honestly, feels brighter to me, knowing that it is buoyed by writers like Thomas Pierce.
February 16, 2018
Pierce is not afraid to confront the big questions about life, death and the thereafter in THE AFTERLIVES. His exploration of mortality and technology was particularly interesting (holograms are terrifying). How do we live when we know we will die, everyone we love will die, everyone who loves us will die? How? It’s unbearable and yet we face it each and every day. This book is definitely for those of us who spend a lot of time thinking these thoughts. I loved it.
December 9, 2020
A really wonderful read that I stumbled on and decided to read due to its front flap summary. This is a story about Jim, who due to a heart arrhythmia has a near death experience that he finds largely disappointing and disturbing as there are no bright lights, long tunnels or angelic escorts as he expected from "near death" accounts in the media. He then hears of a "haunting" at a local restaurant and feels contact with this ghost may serve as a conduit between this world and the next. From there the reader is taken on Jim's journey thru alternative religion (The Church of Search) to physics and ghost particles and a physicist with a "Reunion machine". Along the way Jim's life goes through many changes--I don't want to give away too much but these new circumstances just help to propel him on his quest to find out and perhaps experience connecting with the dead.
In all it was a most enjoyable read, with some elements of speculative fiction and a wonderful story of one man's search for meaning. It is a dual timeline story, the second story giving the history of the restaurant haunting ghost. I did not find the ghost's story added much. Mostly I raced through it in order to get back to Jim who I found complex and often laugh out loud funny.
A great read and wonderful surprising journey. I gobbled it up and wished there were more.
In all it was a most enjoyable read, with some elements of speculative fiction and a wonderful story of one man's search for meaning. It is a dual timeline story, the second story giving the history of the restaurant haunting ghost. I did not find the ghost's story added much. Mostly I raced through it in order to get back to Jim who I found complex and often laugh out loud funny.
A great read and wonderful surprising journey. I gobbled it up and wished there were more.
January 16, 2018
I wish this book had been a little less Straight White Dude in its perspective. The writing is great, especially in how genuinely it earns its emotional payoffs, but at the end of the day what I couldn't shake off was the disappointment in how obvious and boring the narrator's problems were.
He's another white dude concerned with mortality but only in a philosophical sense, which speaks to his relative safety and comfort living in the world. I'm not calling for the book to be written from a marginalized perspective, to be a blistering account of sexism or racism, because I know not every book can tackle every problem in the world, but I don't think it's too much to ask for a little more consideration re: intersectionality in fiction.
For me, the text lacked a propulsive energy because the issues at hand felt so mundane, though it does certainly ratchet up the intrigue in the last fourth. I wish that drive had been consistent.
I was offered an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review through Edelweiss.
3/5
He's another white dude concerned with mortality but only in a philosophical sense, which speaks to his relative safety and comfort living in the world. I'm not calling for the book to be written from a marginalized perspective, to be a blistering account of sexism or racism, because I know not every book can tackle every problem in the world, but I don't think it's too much to ask for a little more consideration re: intersectionality in fiction.
For me, the text lacked a propulsive energy because the issues at hand felt so mundane, though it does certainly ratchet up the intrigue in the last fourth. I wish that drive had been consistent.
I was offered an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review through Edelweiss.
3/5
January 25, 2018
I really wanted to like this book. I read the synopsis and was so excited when I finally got my hands on it! However, this book ended up putting me to sleep. I couldn't get into it at all. I enjoyed the main character's thoughts but unfortunately none of it was memorable. It also doesn't help that the book is divided five parts with no chapters within each section to help you digest the story easier.
February 5, 2018
This booked echoed many thoughts I've had in my life. I absolutely loved The Afterlives, I didn't want the story to end. It was poetic, insightful, funny, generous, and a little futuristic. Full of faith and doubt and complex characters. It left me reminiscing about vignettes in my life for days on end.
![Profile Image for amber [ cozynaturereads] ☁️🌞💗.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1672594934i/27634338._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
January 7, 2018
I finished this the other day and I have mixed feelings about it. The premise was good. I was super interested in this book the first 3 parts of the book and then I found myself falling asleep while reading. Not highlighting or tabbing anymore. I became a bit bored in the last 2 parts.
This story follows a man named Jim who dies for a bit after having a heart attack. Once surviving he was mad because he didn’t see like a light or angels while he was out. He has to have like a “pacemaker” type thing that tracks his heart beat called HeartNet and he also uses a app.
Throughout the story Jim and his wife Annie tries to understand the mystery of this ghost story. A old house turned restaurant has a stairwell where weird things were happening to people. And they believed the house/restaurant was haunted.
I enjoyed the writing of this book & there was a bit of humor throughout but the talk about Afterlives and angel,God and all that sort of dragged on for a bit in some parts (even though I know that’s the point of the book) the mc is questioning all that and what happens once we die.
This is my first read by this author. I found this book in a thrift store for $1. I didn’t know it was a arc until I got home so that’s cool.
This book comes out on January 9th so thank you to the person who donated the book to the thrift store because i was able to read this early 😂
This story follows a man named Jim who dies for a bit after having a heart attack. Once surviving he was mad because he didn’t see like a light or angels while he was out. He has to have like a “pacemaker” type thing that tracks his heart beat called HeartNet and he also uses a app.
Throughout the story Jim and his wife Annie tries to understand the mystery of this ghost story. A old house turned restaurant has a stairwell where weird things were happening to people. And they believed the house/restaurant was haunted.
I enjoyed the writing of this book & there was a bit of humor throughout but the talk about Afterlives and angel,God and all that sort of dragged on for a bit in some parts (even though I know that’s the point of the book) the mc is questioning all that and what happens once we die.
This is my first read by this author. I found this book in a thrift store for $1. I didn’t know it was a arc until I got home so that’s cool.
This book comes out on January 9th so thank you to the person who donated the book to the thrift store because i was able to read this early 😂
January 6, 2018
This book almost defies description and I'm still basically 'speechless' upon finishing. Yes, I can say it's a fictional novel (unless author Pierce knows things we don't!), but then I can tell you all the different genres and subjects it touches: fantasy, the supernatural/ghosts, sci-fi and aliens, relationships, religion and the question of God, conspiracy theories, and the biggest question of all - what happens to us all when we die.
The novel begins when Jim Byrd dies for a few minutes, but he is left with no experience of seeing an 'afterlife', ie, no 'tunnels with lights'. This leaves him with huge life questions and starts seeing the world in a whole new way, along with his new 'HeartNet' to keep his ticker beating safely. The world in which this novel is set in, is even filled with holograms, and so many questions for Jim, and consequently for the reader. I didn't read this as quickly as some books because of that, and I was often putting it down to digest and think about what I'd just read because of everything I just had to absorb. There's actually a lot of humor in the novel too, so even though there are huge topics on the table like life and death, the tone of the book remains light, even when big events happen.
Originally I was put off by the fact that Jim's romance and subsequent relationship with his wife Annie, would be central to the novel, but it ended up being such an original journey that they were on, that I was absorbed by their story within the bigger story.
This is such a unique and intelligent novel, one that will get your brain thinking and your heart thumping. I know I won't read another quite like this in 2018, and it's got to be read to be fully appreciated. Fabulous.
The novel begins when Jim Byrd dies for a few minutes, but he is left with no experience of seeing an 'afterlife', ie, no 'tunnels with lights'. This leaves him with huge life questions and starts seeing the world in a whole new way, along with his new 'HeartNet' to keep his ticker beating safely. The world in which this novel is set in, is even filled with holograms, and so many questions for Jim, and consequently for the reader. I didn't read this as quickly as some books because of that, and I was often putting it down to digest and think about what I'd just read because of everything I just had to absorb. There's actually a lot of humor in the novel too, so even though there are huge topics on the table like life and death, the tone of the book remains light, even when big events happen.
Originally I was put off by the fact that Jim's romance and subsequent relationship with his wife Annie, would be central to the novel, but it ended up being such an original journey that they were on, that I was absorbed by their story within the bigger story.
This is such a unique and intelligent novel, one that will get your brain thinking and your heart thumping. I know I won't read another quite like this in 2018, and it's got to be read to be fully appreciated. Fabulous.
July 6, 2024
It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on the death of a loved one, the death of an animal, grief, & others.
There is a line that is crossed when our time is up. Some may view this as the clock’s final round or the sound of a terminal click, the end. However, you view this, & perhaps you may reflect on the finalization of your life through a religious lens, one does not return to the flesh. Yet, throughout history, the belief in the paranormal has both been shunned & sought out. Famous, classically delicious literature such as Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Grey” (1890); Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” (1847); & Peter Straub’s “Ghost Story” (1979) have highlighted the ghoulishly devious nature of life after death.
Whatever views a reader holds towards these stories & the many others that colour the shelves, the subject matter remains one that seeps into the consciousness of each of us. Perhaps, the reader in question wishes to believe that death brings a great nothingness or, that a bright & shining God will greet them. In other cases, the death of the body leads to a road down which the soul will travel to meet its new life. The possibilities seem endless & yet with all the pondering & philosophizing, humanity has yet to arrive at a set conclusion.
I will not fault us for the inconclusive result of our efforts. There have certainly been reasons to believe that the essence of our person—our spirit, if you are so inclined—returns, or never left the earth. In other cases, the absence of proof elongated the years shadowed by love, such as in the case of Bess, Harry Houdini’s widow.
The reader will find that the ever-present paranormal aspects of life are both gargantuan & utterly inconceivable to the human eye. It may stand to reason that certain experiences leave us closer to the other realms of reality or, the conclusion of a life we are currently leading. In the case of this story, the main character’s experience with the afterlife comes at a price, one that has left him feeling hollowed out & abandoned by the glimmer of hope he held that something, or someone, was waiting for him in the darkness of the end.
Jim dies, medically speaking, with enough time for him to take in the void that is death. The story begins with his reflection on this event & leads the reader down a series of investigative conversations, intertwined with the gory nature of magic & mysticism, ever present in the world & fiction today. Readers will be asked to forgive the salient nature of this story. Jim’s experience with death comes to him in the middle of the day. The reader will also find that it is in the sun that all life ceases to shine. Who then is left to fill the world with humanity?
This book follows Jim as he becomes aware of a paranormal occurrence that haunts a local building. The establishment was used as a restaurant when first welcomed on the scene but had been someone’s home before. Jim seeks to answer whether a person or a place can hold the remnants of life & whether the wormhole of existence can be sustained throughout the ages of a series of lives.
The haunted space is explained as being something of a tear in the zone. The author explains that each space is like an ozone layer around those living inside it. The tear has allowed Jim to wander through the plane of existence & in so doing, to present himself as he is to those who are no longer alive with him. Throughout the story, Jim sees ghosts, & hears them wander the stairs & then he becomes the spiritual essence of his person & wanders the gallantly set path before him, finding his way back to his father. All the while, Jim’s heart is kept beating by a machine.
There are many ways in which a reader might interpret this book. On the one hand, perhaps Jim is a person who has gone mad under the thumb of a life that will be taken from him at any second. His heart failure struck a nerve, so to speak, & Jim never truly emotionally recovered from the experience. I cannot fault him for this. I can only imagine what it must have been like for him to wander the casual laneways of life, unsuspecting that in the next second one of his primary organs would fail him.
Meandering in the background of philosophizing queries is the loss of a person, the demise of consistency, & the permeating truth that nothing lasts forever. The nature of this loss is used as a reinforcement to the main premise—that something lost can be regained—while also supporting the reality that we have met time & again—that the curtain never opens to declare mortal man eternal.
In each scene, the author incorporates the back-and-forth nature of loss. Whereas Jim had once lost touch with Annie, she returns as though by magic at a random but ideal moment. In time, he might feel that what the eye can see may limit his gauge of the track, in its entirety.
Different ideologies are incorporated within these narratives & staunch followers of religious schools of thought will recognize the casual mentions of their pillars. This increased my enjoyment of the story. I wondered where the author might lead the reader next. Which school of thought; which bound text named the word of God, would be woven into the desire to rationalize, secure & compound the inexplicable nature of the final vanishing act?
While these questions perused my mind, I like George Washington, cannot tell a lie, nor do I wish to; this story was incredibly corny & the stylistic approach that the author took was cheesier than raclette.
The characters in this book are reminiscent of tenderly formatted parts, stitched together to make a point. I was not invested in their story on an individual level. Neither characters nor scenes felt intricate. While reading I was reminded that this was a book of make-believe. This is not necessarily bad however, it was not an immersive undertaking; I read knowing something would be revealed & my enjoyment of the process was not so much the point as was the revelation of the information.
To be clear, I could have chosen to abandon the book when Jim rambled on about his heart being powered by a machine or when the machine’s database was hacked, repeatedly. These occurrences laboured my reading in so far as they continuously asked the reader to make links between what was being told & what might have been happening in real life.
Will a reader puzzle the nature of Jim’s concerns that his heart will implode due to the malevolent nature of neutral numbers; one day his fraction will flip & he will find himself the victim of a mathematician’s conniving breach of the system that keeps him alive? Can a person feel empathy for a family of ghosts?
None of these statements are meant to denote anything particularly negative. A reader unlike myself will revel in the indifferent nature of the narratives. A part of me certainly did not particularly care that none of the ghosts were given to the reader with their backgrounds strapped to their backs. On the other hand, I wanted the author to be fastidious; I longed for the story to take itself seriously, to tell the reader that a ghost was depressed & his ambitions resulted in anger & a dead family. Rather than be met with the cruelty of clearly written words, I stumbled over cobblestones that were neither old nor meaningful to the landscape.
This leaves me wondering how the stories are meant to be interpreted. Certainly, one will see the interwoven reality behind the layer that shields each life from another. However, how does one recognize the repeated nature of their experiences in this cycle of existence if not through self-awareness? Can one assume that each individual is self-aware? Does each person repeat a life cycle endlessly? Does this mean that no person is free?
I find myself wanting more from this story & yet when asked, I would happily state that I enjoyed it, very much in fact. Not all stories require a sturdy pen. It can be enough for there to be ink & an eye to decipher shapes, therefore making clear the tar on bark.
The author wanted to wonder & he allowed himself to do so with characters who did not hold the depth of a regular person. I say this while recognizing that we are not all magic pools containing ecosystems; some people are rain puddles, & others, are drops of water on a flower petal. Perhaps I am wrong to harbour a rather minuscule annoyance that this story did not give me what I wanted for, in reality, nothing is for everyone.
If a reader has the patience to listen to concerns & grief, guilt & sadness, they too will find this story to be a marvel of tenderness, simplistically listed alongside roving machinery & quirky personalities. Ultimately, not every story needs to be written in the style of Sartre or Aristotle. Books are meant to reflect the writer whose mind wandered past the walls of their home, the fields of their dreams, & into the palette of a famished reader who longs for the creaking wood in their walls to mean more than what has been concluded by the exterminator.
There is a line that is crossed when our time is up. Some may view this as the clock’s final round or the sound of a terminal click, the end. However, you view this, & perhaps you may reflect on the finalization of your life through a religious lens, one does not return to the flesh. Yet, throughout history, the belief in the paranormal has both been shunned & sought out. Famous, classically delicious literature such as Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Grey” (1890); Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” (1847); & Peter Straub’s “Ghost Story” (1979) have highlighted the ghoulishly devious nature of life after death.
Whatever views a reader holds towards these stories & the many others that colour the shelves, the subject matter remains one that seeps into the consciousness of each of us. Perhaps, the reader in question wishes to believe that death brings a great nothingness or, that a bright & shining God will greet them. In other cases, the death of the body leads to a road down which the soul will travel to meet its new life. The possibilities seem endless & yet with all the pondering & philosophizing, humanity has yet to arrive at a set conclusion.
I will not fault us for the inconclusive result of our efforts. There have certainly been reasons to believe that the essence of our person—our spirit, if you are so inclined—returns, or never left the earth. In other cases, the absence of proof elongated the years shadowed by love, such as in the case of Bess, Harry Houdini’s widow.
The reader will find that the ever-present paranormal aspects of life are both gargantuan & utterly inconceivable to the human eye. It may stand to reason that certain experiences leave us closer to the other realms of reality or, the conclusion of a life we are currently leading. In the case of this story, the main character’s experience with the afterlife comes at a price, one that has left him feeling hollowed out & abandoned by the glimmer of hope he held that something, or someone, was waiting for him in the darkness of the end.
Jim dies, medically speaking, with enough time for him to take in the void that is death. The story begins with his reflection on this event & leads the reader down a series of investigative conversations, intertwined with the gory nature of magic & mysticism, ever present in the world & fiction today. Readers will be asked to forgive the salient nature of this story. Jim’s experience with death comes to him in the middle of the day. The reader will also find that it is in the sun that all life ceases to shine. Who then is left to fill the world with humanity?
This book follows Jim as he becomes aware of a paranormal occurrence that haunts a local building. The establishment was used as a restaurant when first welcomed on the scene but had been someone’s home before. Jim seeks to answer whether a person or a place can hold the remnants of life & whether the wormhole of existence can be sustained throughout the ages of a series of lives.
The haunted space is explained as being something of a tear in the zone. The author explains that each space is like an ozone layer around those living inside it. The tear has allowed Jim to wander through the plane of existence & in so doing, to present himself as he is to those who are no longer alive with him. Throughout the story, Jim sees ghosts, & hears them wander the stairs & then he becomes the spiritual essence of his person & wanders the gallantly set path before him, finding his way back to his father. All the while, Jim’s heart is kept beating by a machine.
There are many ways in which a reader might interpret this book. On the one hand, perhaps Jim is a person who has gone mad under the thumb of a life that will be taken from him at any second. His heart failure struck a nerve, so to speak, & Jim never truly emotionally recovered from the experience. I cannot fault him for this. I can only imagine what it must have been like for him to wander the casual laneways of life, unsuspecting that in the next second one of his primary organs would fail him.
Meandering in the background of philosophizing queries is the loss of a person, the demise of consistency, & the permeating truth that nothing lasts forever. The nature of this loss is used as a reinforcement to the main premise—that something lost can be regained—while also supporting the reality that we have met time & again—that the curtain never opens to declare mortal man eternal.
In each scene, the author incorporates the back-and-forth nature of loss. Whereas Jim had once lost touch with Annie, she returns as though by magic at a random but ideal moment. In time, he might feel that what the eye can see may limit his gauge of the track, in its entirety.
Different ideologies are incorporated within these narratives & staunch followers of religious schools of thought will recognize the casual mentions of their pillars. This increased my enjoyment of the story. I wondered where the author might lead the reader next. Which school of thought; which bound text named the word of God, would be woven into the desire to rationalize, secure & compound the inexplicable nature of the final vanishing act?
While these questions perused my mind, I like George Washington, cannot tell a lie, nor do I wish to; this story was incredibly corny & the stylistic approach that the author took was cheesier than raclette.
The characters in this book are reminiscent of tenderly formatted parts, stitched together to make a point. I was not invested in their story on an individual level. Neither characters nor scenes felt intricate. While reading I was reminded that this was a book of make-believe. This is not necessarily bad however, it was not an immersive undertaking; I read knowing something would be revealed & my enjoyment of the process was not so much the point as was the revelation of the information.
To be clear, I could have chosen to abandon the book when Jim rambled on about his heart being powered by a machine or when the machine’s database was hacked, repeatedly. These occurrences laboured my reading in so far as they continuously asked the reader to make links between what was being told & what might have been happening in real life.
Will a reader puzzle the nature of Jim’s concerns that his heart will implode due to the malevolent nature of neutral numbers; one day his fraction will flip & he will find himself the victim of a mathematician’s conniving breach of the system that keeps him alive? Can a person feel empathy for a family of ghosts?
None of these statements are meant to denote anything particularly negative. A reader unlike myself will revel in the indifferent nature of the narratives. A part of me certainly did not particularly care that none of the ghosts were given to the reader with their backgrounds strapped to their backs. On the other hand, I wanted the author to be fastidious; I longed for the story to take itself seriously, to tell the reader that a ghost was depressed & his ambitions resulted in anger & a dead family. Rather than be met with the cruelty of clearly written words, I stumbled over cobblestones that were neither old nor meaningful to the landscape.
This leaves me wondering how the stories are meant to be interpreted. Certainly, one will see the interwoven reality behind the layer that shields each life from another. However, how does one recognize the repeated nature of their experiences in this cycle of existence if not through self-awareness? Can one assume that each individual is self-aware? Does each person repeat a life cycle endlessly? Does this mean that no person is free?
I find myself wanting more from this story & yet when asked, I would happily state that I enjoyed it, very much in fact. Not all stories require a sturdy pen. It can be enough for there to be ink & an eye to decipher shapes, therefore making clear the tar on bark.
The author wanted to wonder & he allowed himself to do so with characters who did not hold the depth of a regular person. I say this while recognizing that we are not all magic pools containing ecosystems; some people are rain puddles, & others, are drops of water on a flower petal. Perhaps I am wrong to harbour a rather minuscule annoyance that this story did not give me what I wanted for, in reality, nothing is for everyone.
If a reader has the patience to listen to concerns & grief, guilt & sadness, they too will find this story to be a marvel of tenderness, simplistically listed alongside roving machinery & quirky personalities. Ultimately, not every story needs to be written in the style of Sartre or Aristotle. Books are meant to reflect the writer whose mind wandered past the walls of their home, the fields of their dreams, & into the palette of a famished reader who longs for the creaking wood in their walls to mean more than what has been concluded by the exterminator.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 22, 2019
✓Engaging writing
✓Time Travel
✓High Mystery
✓Two time periods
✓Ghosts, maybe
✓Ghost of a dog??
✓Non-fake psychic
✓Time machine like thingy (which works too)
✓Life, afterlife questions
✓For readers who love anything paranormal, spiritual, psychic, vibrations, alternate dimensions, etc.
I guess that covers it all!
Now, what I didn't like at all:
--Protagonist; he's so off-putting to the point I don't give a crap if he dies a horrific, gruesome death, trapped in another dimension.
--His wife is not a deal breaking character either. She feels more like a caricature
--Thier sex is even more off-putting
--It tries to cover too many elements and can't do justice to all
But mostly it's the protagonist and his bad sex doing. You can't make me care any more for a book when I don't like the characters. Only R.R.Martin is an exception!
✓Time Travel
✓High Mystery
✓Two time periods
✓Ghosts, maybe
✓Ghost of a dog??
✓Non-fake psychic
✓Time machine like thingy (which works too)
✓Life, afterlife questions
✓For readers who love anything paranormal, spiritual, psychic, vibrations, alternate dimensions, etc.
I guess that covers it all!
Now, what I didn't like at all:
--Protagonist; he's so off-putting to the point I don't give a crap if he dies a horrific, gruesome death, trapped in another dimension.
--His wife is not a deal breaking character either. She feels more like a caricature
--Thier sex is even more off-putting
--It tries to cover too many elements and can't do justice to all
But mostly it's the protagonist and his bad sex doing. You can't make me care any more for a book when I don't like the characters. Only R.R.Martin is an exception!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 12, 2017
A tender and often comical telling of one man's quest to discover the existence and depths of the afterlife — a journey that takes Jim Byrd to New Age churches, into an investigation of a haunted staircase, and in pursuit of a physicist who may or may not have constructed a machine with the ability to bring us in contact with the deceased. Thomas Pierce's first novel is layered with heart, humor and tremendous revelations concerning our technology-ridden lives.
August 16, 2019
I enjoyed it very much. The kind of poignant story which you are still thinking about several days later. Ghost story plus philosophical exercise plus love story. Seems like some reviewers don't like the fact that the story doesn't have a nicely wrapped, tight ending. I think that was kind of the author's point. And I thought the idea made the story work very well. Definitely recommend.
June 4, 2018
I was pretty convinced this was a 3 book, which for me still means quite good, but the last 1/4 really upped it and I’m left feeling adrift. I want to reread the ending, and I want to discuss with someone, wah!
July 26, 2019
what an odd, completely wonderful book. thoroughly enjoyed it :)
October 22, 2021
October is a month where many like spooky reads. I too love a ghost story and have been writing one myself for the last 25 years (my husband says I'm going to need a Medium myself so someone will finish it after I'm dead) but that is a whole different story. This is a wonderful book I picked up the first time as it had a similar trop to the one I've been endeavoring to complete. I liked it a lot and recommended it to my book club and thus read it again. It may become an annual October read for me. A ghost story that is a less than spooky but just a very enjoyable read.
It is told from mostly a first person point of view. Jim Byrd experiences a near death experience that he finds particularly lackluster. No bright lights or flash back memories, really nothing at all. Then a ghostly experience sends him searching further for any evidence of life after death. This book is fiction, part speculative with futuristic looks at Holograms, Reunion machines that take one out of present reality to experience being with lost love ones and explores in many ways what lies beyond. Certainly a great read for October and one I would recommend highly. Not quite 5 star but a solid 4+ that I am sure I will return to again.
It is told from mostly a first person point of view. Jim Byrd experiences a near death experience that he finds particularly lackluster. No bright lights or flash back memories, really nothing at all. Then a ghostly experience sends him searching further for any evidence of life after death. This book is fiction, part speculative with futuristic looks at Holograms, Reunion machines that take one out of present reality to experience being with lost love ones and explores in many ways what lies beyond. Certainly a great read for October and one I would recommend highly. Not quite 5 star but a solid 4+ that I am sure I will return to again.
February 20, 2018
3.5 stars. I like what Pierce is doing here--exploring how technology has changed the way we think about death, or at least the way we think about what happens after we die. I like the fact that the main character is an average-Joe-type person, and I like the setting (maybe only because that part of the world is familiar to me). But after a big warm up, I grew increasingly disappointed with this story. Maybe it's the hologram twist and the way it lends a vague sci-fi tone that really turned me off. Every time the "grammers" show up I'm sort of, ewww, just stop. But points to Pierce for making this futuristic aspect of the novel feel pretty commonplace.
I have to say, I'm a little obsessed with what happens to us after we die. I don't understand why we don't know the answer to this, and I feel like we should. But the fact that this one important question is still completely unanswered, after all the technological/scientific advances we have made, is sort of the answer itself. We don't know because we either can't comprehend it, or there's just nothing, or it's so horrible no one wants to tell us. Or maybe it's wonderful and no one wants to tell us because then we'd all just kill ourselves. At any rate, my own philosophical musings aside, I appreciate an author trying to tackle this subject. But this novel just didn't land for me. At times it lagged, at other times I felt that the characters were a little too bland. And the ending felt a bit like a cop-out.
I have to say, I'm a little obsessed with what happens to us after we die. I don't understand why we don't know the answer to this, and I feel like we should. But the fact that this one important question is still completely unanswered, after all the technological/scientific advances we have made, is sort of the answer itself. We don't know because we either can't comprehend it, or there's just nothing, or it's so horrible no one wants to tell us. Or maybe it's wonderful and no one wants to tell us because then we'd all just kill ourselves. At any rate, my own philosophical musings aside, I appreciate an author trying to tackle this subject. But this novel just didn't land for me. At times it lagged, at other times I felt that the characters were a little too bland. And the ending felt a bit like a cop-out.
September 20, 2022
I love Thomas Pierce’s work. He has a tremendous knack for writing stories and characters that are not only realistic but familiar, and yet there’s always a little twist or quirk or element that leaves the reader feeling slightly unbalanced. His excellent collection of short stories, “Hall Of Small Mammals,” was packed full of these off-beat little gems so I was very intrigued to see how his style would carry over to the longer format of a novel. I’m happy to report that his first full-length book, “The Afterlives,” retains all the warmth, charm, and creativity of his short stories. Sure, it’s a little unfocused in spots, it meanders a bit here and there, but what else do you expect when an author of Pierce’s wit and thoughtfulness tackles two of the great unknowns: Death and Love.
“The Afterlives” is mainly the story of Jim Byrd, an unremarkable loan officer who, due to a heart condition, was technically dead for a few minutes before the paramedics were able to revive him. For Jim, the most troubling aspect of the experience was that he didn’t perceive anything like an afterlife: no white light, no deceased relatives welcoming him to Heaven, nothing. It’s from this little seed that Pierce grows a very fertile story. “The Afterlives” is also about Jim’s burgeoning relationship with his wife Annie (who was widowed years before) and his stepdaughter Fisher, as well as his complex dealings with his father. But “The Afterlives” is also about the search for spirituality, the proliferation of holograms (“Grammers”) in society, the nature of existence and what lies beyond what we can perceive, and the dangers of how technology may be able to let us glimpse what comes after death. Also, for good measure, Pierce throws in flashbacks about a troubled marriage that culminated in a horrific house fire. Okay, take a breath. Don’t be intimidated by all that. Yes, Pierce ponders a lot in the book’s 360+ pages; you can almost feel him relaxing and stretching out, unconstrained by the limits of short fiction. And yes, these plot threads don’t come together neatly in the end but real life isn’t neat, death isn’t neat, and love isn’t neat, so why should “The Afterlives” be? More than anything, “The Afterlives” feels real. Despite all the holograms and futuristic heart devices and whatnot, Jim Byrd - his personality, his family, his struggles - feels so incredibly real. That’s the key to the novel, I think: how Pierce so deftly balances the ineffable (Death and Love) with the mundane (dealing with death and love).
With so much going on in “The Afterlives,” I feel like I’m still unpacking all my thoughts and opinions about the book. Like the ghosts or spirits or whatever in its pages, “The Afterlives” feels just beyond reach, even almost flimsy at times, and yet it’s undeniably there. Even hours after turning the last page, Jim and Annie and all the others still exist in my imagination. I’m not sure any of this makes sense so let me just say that the novel is hypnotic, dreamy, and beautiful. I don’t need to see the future to know that Thomas Pierce will go down as one of the great writers of the 21st century.
“The Afterlives” is mainly the story of Jim Byrd, an unremarkable loan officer who, due to a heart condition, was technically dead for a few minutes before the paramedics were able to revive him. For Jim, the most troubling aspect of the experience was that he didn’t perceive anything like an afterlife: no white light, no deceased relatives welcoming him to Heaven, nothing. It’s from this little seed that Pierce grows a very fertile story. “The Afterlives” is also about Jim’s burgeoning relationship with his wife Annie (who was widowed years before) and his stepdaughter Fisher, as well as his complex dealings with his father. But “The Afterlives” is also about the search for spirituality, the proliferation of holograms (“Grammers”) in society, the nature of existence and what lies beyond what we can perceive, and the dangers of how technology may be able to let us glimpse what comes after death. Also, for good measure, Pierce throws in flashbacks about a troubled marriage that culminated in a horrific house fire. Okay, take a breath. Don’t be intimidated by all that. Yes, Pierce ponders a lot in the book’s 360+ pages; you can almost feel him relaxing and stretching out, unconstrained by the limits of short fiction. And yes, these plot threads don’t come together neatly in the end but real life isn’t neat, death isn’t neat, and love isn’t neat, so why should “The Afterlives” be? More than anything, “The Afterlives” feels real. Despite all the holograms and futuristic heart devices and whatnot, Jim Byrd - his personality, his family, his struggles - feels so incredibly real. That’s the key to the novel, I think: how Pierce so deftly balances the ineffable (Death and Love) with the mundane (dealing with death and love).
With so much going on in “The Afterlives,” I feel like I’m still unpacking all my thoughts and opinions about the book. Like the ghosts or spirits or whatever in its pages, “The Afterlives” feels just beyond reach, even almost flimsy at times, and yet it’s undeniably there. Even hours after turning the last page, Jim and Annie and all the others still exist in my imagination. I’m not sure any of this makes sense so let me just say that the novel is hypnotic, dreamy, and beautiful. I don’t need to see the future to know that Thomas Pierce will go down as one of the great writers of the 21st century.
June 11, 2018
Early on I was thinking of ditching this book because I was struggling to connect with the main character, but I usually like to try and get to page 50, unless the writing is utter drivel. The writing here was solid and so I pressed on. Good Lord I'm glad I did!! This might end up being one of my favorites of 2018. It falls snuggly in the capital "L" section of Literary Fiction, in that it discusses Big Themes (in this case death and what happens after) and not a whole lot happens (that's not exactly true, lots of things happen but they are small, and subtle, and nuanced), but boy did it make an impact on me. I found it to be an incredibly smart and clever book and I loved that there was a love story wrapped up in all of it. I think that's when I changed my mind about this book... when Jim Byrd reconnects with Annie. There's also a supernatural/sci fi element that comes up later in the book that just worked so well, that added a level of intrigue I wasn't expecting from the beginning. Anyway, gush gush gush, I loved this one!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 320 reviews