AFTERLIFE

Alma Cuervo’s warm, even-keeled performance guides listeners through the interwoven themes of love, loss, and compassion in this beautifully wrought new novel by poet and author Julia Alvarez. Antonia is a Vermonter of Dominican heritage. Since the recent death of her beloved husband, she has been “walking a narrow path through the loss” of love and identity—for Sam died on the day that Antonia retired from her job as an English professor. In the midst of her fragile calm, an illegal worker on the neighboring farm asks for her help, and a crisis erupts among her three siblings—the Dominican “sisterhood.” Cuervo reads with nuance, highlighting different personalities without overdramatizing and enabling listeners to savor Alvarez’s memorable writing. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2020 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2020]