The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

But he soon travels to the appropriately grisly “lower realm” to rescue his wife, who in her grief has committed suicide. A family man perishes in a traffic smash and materialises in “Summerland”, an upbeat paradise built by the power of thought. Never mind the movie: the novel is a riveting breakdown of the path from death to an esoteric afterworld. What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson (1978) Sebold handles her novel’s central irony – that the power of Susie’s desire to live is what eventually enables her to enjoy her death – with delicacy and passion.ģ. The felt-pen drawing by Susie Salmon’s kid brother inadvertently reveals her new celestial whereabouts: “A thick blue line separated the air and the ground… I became convinced that the line was a real place… where heaven’s horizon met Earth’s.” Susie, recently murdered, watches her family, friends and neighbours from this ethereal viewing platform, but with frustratingly inconsistent ability to influence anything. If Earth’s population dwindles, what happens to the city of the remembered dead? An intriguing, melancholic portrait of an “in-between” place blossoms into a beautifully lyrical study of memory itself.Ģ. Back on mid-21st-century Earth, things are going dangerously wrong: not least, the rampant spread of genetically modified viruses. In an accommodating but bland city, the deceased continue to exist, but only as long as someone still alive remembers them. The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (2006) Here are some other works of afterlife fiction, all of which enjoy playful but convincing backdrops to their otherworldly tales.ġ. The inventing ended up being the best part. Until I sat down to write my story of a celestial rock festival, I’d somehow forgotten an entire existence would need to be invented.