Book Review: The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
3.75 stars
Kevin Brockmeier’s tale of the after life and the end of a life jump back and forth in this poetic and sometime uneven tale.
The afterlife is a city populated by people. Those that live there are remembered by someone who is living. They exist because someone else does. This is a novel concept. Suddenly the city empties out. There are only a few remaining people. The tale cuts back and forth between the dead and Laura Byrd.
The book as a whole was enjoyable. I thought the idea of the remembered dead as a powerful post-death idea and the expression as a city nice. I thought Mr. Brockmeier did a nice job conveying this idea fully and with a prose style that favored the story.
I really have two issues with this book, and they could be big ones for some. I found both the beginning and ending out of sync with the rest of the book. The beginning in the city is very distracting and unfocused. I feel like it was the idea of the city of the dead but without a narrative. It is very grocery list like. And the ending was very sudden and very predictable. There are parts in the middle of the book where there is mystery or tension but the end did not resolve them. It felt odd to me that the character made some of the decisions. Most of that is in hindsight because as I was reading it, it did move along. The plot was pushing this the whole time.
Kevin Brockmeier
I think Kevin Brockmeier has a lot of potential. I want to investigate his short story collection The View from the Seventh Layer. I have a feeling that may suit his talents better.
