PASADENA, Calif.— "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 Merrill Joan Gerber, a lecturer in creative writing at the California Institute of Technology.
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 [email protected] or via her web page at www.cco.caltech.edu/~mjgerber.
