Antrim explains that the mattress symbolized a sanctuary where he could stop thinking about his mother. After Louanne’s death, the first thing Antrim does is search for a new mattress. All he had wanted was a stable home it’s the one thing he couldn’t have. He spent his entire life until this point nursing Louanne and praying she would get better. Although she is dead, Antrim can’t forget her, because his story is naturally bound to hers. Louanne sobered up before both parents died. Once he passed away, the money dried up because Louanne’s mother, Roxanne, didn’t believe in supporting adult children financially. Antrim’s grandfather had supported Louanne financially.

Louanne had moved the family to Black Mountain after her own father died in 1995. She died in August 2000, on a beautiful Saturday morning in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Aside from these themes, The Afterlife is also an exploration of dysfunctional family life, and the story of a man finding his identity.Īntrim begins by talking about Louanne’s death. The descriptions are explicit and candid. Readers should know that the book explores troubling issues such as alcoholism, abuse, and neglect. Although the subject matter is serious, Antrim tackles it in a blackly comic way. Once she dies, Antrim feels it is safe to explore what it was like growing up in a miserable home and his feelings toward her.

Her family knew her as an aggressive and manipulative alcoholic who controlled the family’s dynamic for decades. Before she died, outsiders knew Louanne as a talented artist and popular teacher. Antrim wrote The Afterlife in 2000, shortly after the death of his mother, Louanne Self. He is best known for exploring anxiety and troubling themes in his work. He taught prose fiction at New York University and the MFA program at Columbia University. The New Yorker named him among the best writers under forty in 1999. Antrim is a bestselling and critically acclaimed writer. It was also a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews following its publication, the book won the 2007 Ambassador Book Award for Biography. In The Afterlife: A Memoir (2007), American writer Donald Antrim chronicles his relationship with his manipulative and mentally ill alcoholic mother.

Summary of life after life novel