Later the Same Day

by Grace Paley and Adam Bright

Book Overview

This collection of seventeen short stories deals with characters who are deeply involved with their parents, lovers, children, past, present, future, and the welfare of the community This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140086412
• ISBN13: 9780140086416
• Release Date: April 1986
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Book connection

Overall ,I enjoyed reading this book because I made many connections to it. While I was reading it, I was thinking in my mind how similar this book is to my life. Not only this book made a connection to my life but also to the world we are in today. The way it connects is by the political situations we were facing. Now that we have a new president, which is African American indeed, we are all looking forward to a better future and a better economy situation. I recommend this book to everyone to read because people might have some sort of connection to this book. This book can be challenging at times, but we should know that not everything in lfe is going to be easy.

old fashioned, but great writing

The stories collected in the volume "Later the same day" are written in clear, somewhat old-fashioned prose. I liked some of them more than others, although, I have to admit, I could not connect with the author's way of thinking, something hard to catch was missing. The stories I especially liked are those which have a strong point: "Zagrowsky Tells", a story of the Jewish pharmacist who explains why his grandson is black, delving into interracial relations; "Listening", centered on the problem of having a baby in middle-age and second marriage, how this affect the relationship and how the discussion about this can be initiated; many of the shortest, two-paged miniatures are excellent. In some of the other stories the meaning was a little too diluted to my taste. Faith Darwin, who appears in many of the stories as a character, and can be imagined to be the narrator of the others, is an alter ego of author (an obvious parallel between their names), making the stories semi-autobiographical. The stories take place in one New York City neighborhood and reflect the problems of a group of friends and neighbors there - their family lives, travels, opinions are the main themes in each of the stories, which seem like short flashes, pictures from days in real life. These are pieces of good, well-constructed and thought-over writing, the prose is lucid and precise, but the collection felt to me oddly like 1980's (with strong Woody Allen echoes, but this is not a comedy, despite delicate irony sounding here and there, these stories are serious). The political activism and social discussions are a bit obsolete. Therefore, I do not agree with the other reviewer who argues that this collection is universal - I know the feelings described there can apply to many situations even now (like relationships between people, especially in a family), but many problems are specific to the break of 1970s and 1980s. The awareness of world political affairs, for example, is much greater nowadays, because the means of communication have improved (with great emphasis on Internet). I think these stories can be read now as a memory of these decades, with some universal meanings, that have to be filtered out - but this opinion does not deny them literary value.

Later the Same Day...a permanent resident of my headboard

I have a friend who is so well read that she refuses to discuss books with anyone else for fear they may "contaminate" her.Although I think that I have great taste in the printed word, I seldom mention anything I have read to her for fear she will think me common. When I read this book, I called her up and told her she must read it immediately. I have read a book a day or so since I was six. I am now a women of a certain age. About once every three years, I read the first page of a book and feel lightening strike my brain. That happened with "Later the Same Day". I now read and read again every book by Grace Paley, seeing my life in the lives of women who were wives/daughters/mothers/lovers/writers 50 years ago. (Is it that long?)The difficulties of combining motherhood, marriage, extended family, creative fullfillment, community activism and friendship are explored in painful detail in these stories, and ring true to the lives of all the women I know in the year 2000. Give this book to women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and ask them when it was written, and they will all say "this year". Give a copy to all your literate friends, both male and female, and keep a copy in your own headboard or bedside table, for those lonely nights when you want to know you are not alone in the struggle to be a complete person.