The first two seasons of Ricky Gervais's After Life on Netflix focused on Tony, a widowed husband trying to find a reason to live after his beloved wife dies. There are life-out-loud funny scenes, with expressions of red-hot anger and a viewpoint of the absurdities of life. Season three picks up with Tony still pissed off and wondering why he should keep living. His maturation and eventual acceptance that life is worth living brings a tear to the eye and still slips in jokes and observations that make viewing well worth your time.
This is an evocative, touching book. I grew up in Tennessee just a ways down the road from the hard-luck main character, Skid, offset by just a few years. Randy O’Brien knows the 70s in the South – what’s going on, the shifting attitudes, politics, being poor, and what it’s like to be a kid who’s good at some things but not others. Through the tumult of young love, misfortune and downright unfairness, Skid struggles to do the right thing – sometimes succeeding and sometimes not – while wrestling with the wild emotion of youth and self-discovery. It all builds to a climax that breaks your heart even as it holds out a bit of hope. I recommend it.
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