Caltech
author publishes novel
“Once
her dying got underway, Anna could not really complain about the way the
process moved along.” So begins Anna in the Afterlife, the latest
novel by Caltech lecturer in creative writing Merrill Joan Gerber.
Anna in the
Afterlife is a novel about an acerbic, 90-year-old woman (“a tough
cookie,” as she calls herself) who, upon her death, is finally freed
from the restrictions of her mortal life. During the four days between
her death and burial, Anna, “infinitely present, never dead, never
stupid, and never done with it all,” observes the preparations for
her own funeral, finds out the true nature of her sister’s suicide
attempt, and learns of her own sexual abuse by her half-brother. She considers
the origins of her bigotry and her reluctant capitulation to romantic
and physical love. In her final moments of consciousness, Anna has the
last word about her own secrets and crimes before taking the first step
into eternity.
“Most
of my work comes from the close observation of family life,” says
Gerber, who has taught at Caltech since 1989. “Of course, life is
chaotic, and in fiction, you take control of the material and shape it,
redesign it, to give it meaning.”
Anna follows
the earlier publication of Anna in Chains, a book of short stories about
Anna as an elderly widow, who first struggles to maintain her independence
in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles, then reluctantly makes the transition
to a retirement home, and eventually moves into a nursing home.
“In
some ways, I was forced to confront this subject,” says Gerber. “My
own mother lived in a nursing home for seven years, paralyzed and on a
feeding tube, desperate to die. It was an impossible existence for her
and a wrenching experience for the family. It made me understand what
horrors are visited upon us as we age.”
Gerber urges
her Caltech students to examine the dynamics of family life in their own
search for a subject. “My students don’t write ‘genre’
fiction in class—we don’t discuss science fiction or romance
or action thrillers,” she says. “I urge my students to consider
the ‘hot spots’ in their lives, the issues that interest them
in family relationships or their personal friendships or their love affairs—ideas
they return to thinking about frequently.”
Every family
has its peculiarities, Gerber says, and she often suggests to her students
that, to find a story, they go home at Thanksgiving and look around the
dinner table.
While her
fiction class is an elective within the Division of the Humanities and
Social Sciences, Gerber says it is well attended, mostly by juniors and
seniors. As writers, she says, she finds her students to be bright and
perceptive. “Most of them have been focused on science during their
entire academic careers, and given the chance to explore other areas of
their lives, they find they have a good deal to say.”
Anna in the
Afterlife is Gerber’s seventh novel; others include King of the World,
which won the Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award for an “important
and unusual book of literary distinction,” and The Kingdom of Brooklyn,
winner of the Ribalow Award from Hadassah Magazine for “the best
English-language book of fiction on a Jewish theme.” Her short stories
have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Mademoiselle, and Redbook,
and in many literary magazines. Her short story, “I Don’t Believe
This,” won an O. Henry Prize Award in l986.
Gerber earned her master’s in English from Brandeis University and
was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fiction Fellowship to Stanford University.
She lives in Sierra Madre with her husband, who recently retired as a
professor at Pasadena City College. Gerber has three daughters and two
grandsons.
Anna in the Afterlife was published in January by Syracuse University
Press. The author can be reached at mjgerber@caltech.edu
or via her Web page at www.its.caltech.edu/~mjgerber.
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