After Eden is a provocative novel that examines the meaning of home and homelessness among people who see such issues as more than abstractions. In a story populated by Pomo Indians, Euro-American ranchers and vintners, and Mexican American migrant laborers, Valerie Miner deftly juxtaposes differing cultural views of wilderness, trespassing, and home. Her dramatic novel is contemporary, while reflecting on two centuries of change in a seemingly Edenic place.
Looking forward to relief from her job as a city planner in Chicago, Emily Adams begins a much-needed vacation at her Northern California cabin. But the sudden death of her life partner forces her to re-examine personal commitments. Caught up in reflection, she comes to understand the intricacies of life in her pastoral retreat—complexities that she had never before considered.
In the modern-day Eden of California’s coastal range, Emily finds conflict all around her: between loggers and environmentalists, farmworkers and immigration authorities, newcomers establishing a lesbian community and long-time residents clinging to traditional ways.
As Emily learns to overcome grief, her story moves from loss to renewal for both the individual and the community. A decidedly feminist view of the New West, After Eden weaves lyrical prose with a different look at “family values” and what it really means to be human.
Valerie Miner is the award-winning author of thirteen books. Her new novel, After Eden, is published in the "Literature of the American West Series" by the University of Oklahoma Press. Other novels include Range of Light, A Walking Fire, Winter's Edge, Blood Sisters, All Good Women, Movement: A Novel in Stories, and Murder in the English Department. Her short fiction books include Abundant Light, The Night Singers and Trespassing. Her collection of essays is Rumors from the Cauldron: Selected Essays, Reviews and Reportage.
Valerie Miner's work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Salmagundi, New Letters, Ploughshares, The Village Voice, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, Conditions, The T.L.S., The Women?s Review of Books, The Nation and other journals. Her stories and essays are published in more than sixty anthologies. Her collaborative work includes books, museum exhibits as well as theatre. A number of her pieces have been dramatized on BBC Radio 4.
She has won fellowships and awards from The Rockefeller Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The NEA, The Jerome Foundation, The Heinz Foundation, The Australia Council Literary Arts Board and numerous other sources. She has had Fulbright Fellowships to Tunisia, India and Indonesia.
Winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, she has taught for over twenty-five years and is now an artist-in-residence and professor at Stanford University. She travels internationally giving readings, lectures and workshops. She and her partner live in San Francisco and Mendocino County, California
