Afterward
by Bristol Vaudrin
Out NOW in paperback, ebook and audiobook, anywhere you can buy books
“Afterward is a perfectly titrated novel. In this taut, voice-driven, and viciously subversive debut, Bristol Vaudrin proves herself a master of withholding, cleverly navigating the chasm between said and unsaid as she exposes the underside of humanity at its most self-absorbed. A terrific debut!”
— Sara Lippmann, author of Jerks and Lech
“Bristol Vaudrin's Afterward describes contemporary work and social life in lyrical, almost anthropological, detail, but the traumatic event that sets the novel in motion suffuses it with dread and forces a reckoning with the way we live now. The combination of emotional intensity and dry humor evokes European writers like Elena Ferrante and Fleur Jaeggy, but the void Vaudrin stares down, and even comes to terms with, is unmistakably American. A powerful meditation on grief that isn't afraid to make you laugh amid the pain.”
— Christian TeBordo, author of Ghost Engine and The Apology
"Bristol Vaudrin's debut is a marvel that pulls the reader along with sophisticated sentences that manage to be both haunting and hilarious. Afterward will keep you stunned from its first page."
— Avner Landes, author of Meiselman: The Lean Years and The Delegation
The story opens with a traumatic event, but we do not know what happened. We only slowly piece it together through the course of the book, as we see the effects of its aftermath.
Filled with dark humor, this story is about the messiness of our modern lives and the flaws we bring to it.
This fascinating debut novel is an engrossing and darkly comedic read with an unforgettable narrator/protagonist. Watching her struggles—real, imagined, and in-between—we too must choose between kindness and judgment, between condescension towards someone who simply doesn’t have a clue, and empathy with a person struggling to deal with something we all must face: the desire to hold on to the things we enjoy when the world around us changes in ways we didn’t expect. - Tortoise Books, Publisher