Aftermirth

So begins “Aftermirth,” a dark comedy that explores the absurdity of death through the eyes of 31-year-old comedian, writer, & actor, Michael Larssen. What is horribly funny to the rest of the world is devastating to Michael, who loves his wife deeply, especially her bright, rippling, abandoned laughter, which captivated him from the first time he ever heard it. In the aftermath of her death, he loses his sense of humor, & his career along with it.

Then, after two years of mourning her, he sees an article in the paper about a factory worker named Julio Santiago who fell into a giant vat of dough & was kneaded to death. For reasons Michael doesn’t understand, he decides to go to the man’s wake. There he meets & bonds with Julio’s 29-year-old daughter Elena, a law student who is reeling from her father’s unexpected & preposterous death.

Three months later, she calls him out of the blue & suggests that the two of them drive to North Carolina to speak with another survivor like themselves Elena has found on the Internet. Their road trip is a darkly funny journey of healing that takes them deep into the heart of their grief & others’, & then beyond it, to a place of peace & laughter.

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Hillary Jordan is the author of the novels Mudbound (2008) & When She Woke (2011), as well as the digital short “Aftermirth.”

Mudbound won the 2006 Bellwether Prize, founded by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize socially conscious fiction, & a 2009 Alex Award from the American Library Association. It was the 2008 NAIBA Fiction Book of the Year & was long-listed for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Paste magazine named it one of the Top Ten Debut Novels of the Decade. Mudbound has been translated into French, Italian, Serbian, Swedish, & Norwegian, & the film version is forthcoming in fall 2017.