I thought, from its excerpt, that I knew what I was getting from E.K. Johnston’s latest novel. However, The Afterward was nothing I ever could have imagined.
True, The Afterward was still packed with a lot of what I’d been expecting: a diverse cast of, largely, women, ranging from knights, to thieves, to mages, and a ton of kick-ass action. But there was a quieter aspect to it I was not expecting, one that was about choice, consequences, and love — and how, sometimes, the right person at the wrong time can still be the wrong person.
The Afterward, as its title suggests, is about what comes after. After the epic quest, after relationships have fractured, after the consequences for certain actions find their way to your door. The stakes throughout the novel are, admittedly, lower than usual for a fantasy setting. But there’s something genuinely refreshing about that.
Yes, it is always thrilling to read about daring heroics, and epic battles, and sprawling quests. There is some of that in The Afterward’s pages, known as the “Before.” But the real heart of E.K. Johnston’s novel is in the fallout. There’s a certain amount of glitz-and-glamour associated with knights, but the truth of living that life — the largely skewed risk vs. reward — is often neatly sidestepped.
That’s not the case here.
Kalanthe — an former apprentice knight — is the embodiment of those consequences. While, yes, she has gone through her knighthood, there are debts associated with that. Debts that she is unable to pay. That leads to a brutal warring of what her heart wants — Olsa, a thief that accompanied her on her quest — and what is necessary. That necessary action is marrying well, in this instance to a man, in order to clear those debts.
There is little to no shying away from the fact that Kalanthe and Olsa love and care for each other and — in a perfect world — they would be together. Kalanthe’s prospective marriage is, essentially, all business. Still, it is not a decision that Kalanthe takes lightly, particularly when her path crosses with Olsa’s once more. But her sense of duty and honor largely overrides doing what would make her happiest.
And, for Olsa, the thing getting in her way is pride. There are paths open to her where she could get the support and help she needs, and yet, she is too proud to ask for or accept it. It is, for many, understandable — it can often be difficult to admit you are struggling, and allow yourself to lean so wholly upon someone else. Olsa, for that reason, was the character that resonated so closely with me.
There was a melancholic feeling to the entirety of The Afterward as the story of how Kalanthe and Olsa came together and then apart wove between the “Before” and “After” segments, but more in the reflective nostalgia sense, rather than in a way that felt needlessly sad or tragic. In fact, the ending for the two was highly satisfying for the journey they went on throughout the novel — and one that was a little unexpected, but wholly welcome.
The one part of the novel that might trip some people up — and may even take some time to get in to — is the switching between timelines and perspectives. When using the first person, it wasn’t always clearly marked which character perspective it was from, so took a little piecing together to figure it out. Similarly, the switching between the “Before” and “After” could sometimes be jarring, and take you out of the flow of the narrative, just as it was picking up.
But, as far as nit-picks go, the structure of the novel was an easy enough one to overcome, when the characters, worldbuilding, magic, action, and relationships were so wonderful from start to finish. There also wasn’t any one-and-done tokens of diversity. It was part of the fabric of The Afterward’s world so wholly and completely, that it just was. It was everything I’d been hoping and expecting from a queer novel, and I hope that more take a page out of The Afterward’s book moving forward.
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