After the Fire

By J.A. Jance

Book Overview

That fire can cleanse as well as destroy is no mystery to J. A. Jance. Before she found fame as a best-selling mystery author, Judith Jance wrestled with the personal anguish of being married to an alcoholic. For years she composed poetry in secret and kept it locked away. Finally it was published as After the Fire in 1984, the year before her debut novel. After the Fire chronicled the death of a relationship as Jance's marriage to her first husband gradually collapsed under the weight of his addiction--aided and abetted by her own unwitting denial and co-dependence--while she struggled to find herself. "I will not be the price of your redemption," she wrote then. "I will not pay my life to ransom yours." Now this deeply personal work is available in a new annotated edition. In it, Jance offers unblinking insights into where she was and what was happening when each of these searing poems was written--remaking After the Fire as more than a collection of poetry. Now it is a portrait of addiction and the insidious ways in which it destroys relationships. As Jance now observes while reflecting on these poems, "I could remember that spring morning sitting at the Formica table in my Phoenix kitchen and writing 'The Collector' while bags of unpacked groceries waited on the table beside me. I recalled everything about that long, long New Year's Eve vigil at my dying former husband's bedside. I felt once again the velvet smoothness of 'Fog' as I walked through a Seattle September morning on my way to a new life. . . . My life is far richer because of this book. My hope is that others will find answers here as well--answers and their own share of strength and courage." A work of crushing defeat and ultimate triumph, After the Fire relates an emotional journey that will be readily recognizable to anyone who has seen love destroyed and then found the strength to go on. It will inspire others who are struggling with similar issues as it allows fans of Jance's mysteries to better know the mind--and heart--of a favorite author.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931583048
• ISBN13: 9781931583046
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: University of Arizona Libraries
• Length: 85 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 0.5" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Powerful

The author talks about each of the poems before she reads them. In that way we get a kind of autobiography of J.A. Jance's early years, focusing especially what she went through while in a disastrous marriage to a hardcore alcoholic (9 rehab stints in 7 years!). Still, she never makes it clear why she stayed for so many years, and there is nothing new in her experiences or revelations.

An anthology of brief poems supplemented by prose insights

After The Fire is an anthology of brief poems supplemented by prose insights. Composed to express author J. A. Jance's anguish at being married to an alcoholic, they chronicle her realization that her unwitting denial and co-dependence was only serving to further condemn herself and her spouse. After The Fire is an insidious portrait of addiction and its terrible costs, hard-hitting to the core, and each page further draws the reader into the experience. Fog: I walk in fog / Its velvet touch caresses me / And hides the hurt. / Beyond the fog, the sun / Shines clear and bright. / I must keep moving, / I have earned the light.

Rattlesnake Crossing

I loved this book. It took me to places that I have visited and would like to return to. I really enjoyed the characters. This writer describes her people well.