Kent, Ryland. After This

Set in the late 1930s and published in Nov. 1939, After This opens in mid-Indian Ocean aboard the liner S.S. KALIPURTHA en route from Europe with a "Grand Hotel" complement of passengers bound for Calcutta and "Hongkong." Unbeknownst to passengers and crew, two of the ship's American passengers - small time crooks named Danny and Manny - have smuggled a huge shipment of munitions aboard the vessel that are destined for Imperial Japanese forces fighting on Mainland China. On a hot, sultry August Sunday afternoon, with the ship at the impossible latitude of 90 degrees 30 minutes, a terrific explosion rocks the boats (the munitions have exploded) "and in less than thirty seconds the KALIPURTHA and all aboard were lost from mortal view." And thus begins one of the strangest works of fiction in this listing for with the sinking of the KALIPURTHA as prologue, author Kent proceeds to follow a select group of the vessel's now-deceased passengers as they move about, singly or in pairs, through a strangely humanized afterlife and attempt to attain what can only be described as a sort of celestial transcendental existence. As strange as the novel may appear today, it was but one of several alternative reality works of the inter-War and World War 2 eras which humanized otherworldy and after-death experiences. The 1924 play "Outward Bound" (made into an early talking picture in 1930) comes immediately to mind, as does James Hilton's popular 1933 novel Lost Horizon. But even more closely related to After This were a series of afterlife fantasy films, often directly tied to World War 2, including "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941), "A Guy Named Joe" (1943), "Heaven Can Wait" (1943), "Between Two Worlds" (1944) and "Stairway to Heaven" (1946).