SOURCE: Rubin, Merle. “Three Tales of What Happens ‘Afterward.’” Christian Science Monitor (27 August 1993): 14.

In the following review of The Rest of Life, Rubin asserts that the title novella is the strongest of the volume, while the others are unfocused.

If the marriage of lovers has provided the happy ending of many a comedy and the thwarting of love is the stuff of more than a few tragedies, much remains to be said about what happens after these peaks of human experience: the rest of life.

In three novellas assembled under that title [The Rest of Life], novelist Mary Gordon explores the uncertain, inconclusive world of what happens afterward. The first two stories look at women living with men they love. The last unfolds the story of a woman who has survived, if never quite recovered from, a youthful tragedy.

The narrator of “Immaculate Man” is a middle-aged social...