Death of an Ordinary Man

At one time or another doesn't everyone wonder what people they know will say, do or think once they're dead? Nathan Clark finds out when, in spirit, he attends his own funeral and stays around to re-examine of his life as well as the thoughts and actions of those he was closest to. The reader is seeing everything through dead Nathan's eyes and thoughts. At times it's disjointed, but isn't that how people's thoughts often are?

Glen Duncan is a genious writer. I found this to be a deeply thought provoking read that was so closely tied to stream of consciousness I felt it was pulling the thoughts right out of my head - complete empathy for the narrator. I was drawn in directly from the beginning, and sorry when the reading experience was over. I have now started to read "The Bloodstone Papers," and though a very different kind of read, I am finding that Duncan is a masterful writer. I look forward to reading everything he has written.

In this novel about "ordinary" people,and using no more than ordinary language, ordinary circumstances, Glen Duncan manages to posit the ultimate questions, and offer (through his characters actions and decisions) some tentative answers. Duncan seizes and keeps your attention through successive revelation of the two mysteries: what happened to Nathan? What happened to his daughter Lois? But though it uses plot and suspense to keep you tightly engrossed, the novel is really very much about character -- and the qualities that, for better or worse, permit us to prevail, or, not. Best novel I've read in a long time. Highly recommend.

The theme of this novel is revealed in a quote near the ending of the book: "Sartre said all writing's an act of infidelity. So's surviving the dead" (p. 286). In this beautiful, spare novel, Duncan explores the many betrayals that make up a family, ranging from an all-too-common marital infidelity to the infinitely more tragic betrayal of not being able to protect one's child from brutality. We meet Nathan, the central character, in his first few moments of his awareness of being dead. At first there is nothingness: "It was neither dark nor light but if he lifted his hand in front of his face he wouldn't be able to see it." As the novel progresses, Nathan regains memories as well as being allowed to witness his family member's actions and thoughts. As details emerge, the reader begins to realize there is much more here than an ordinary life and death. This is not a book to read for a laugh, as there are few laughs, if any, in it. It is instead a book for any parent who has dared to confront the unthinkable: How would I react if it happened to my family? Could I cope? How could someone possibly cope? Nathan's story provides the uncomfortable confirmation of your suspicion that, sometimes, things happen that just can't be coped with. This message will linger with you long after you've put it down. Duncan does a wonderful job of portraying characters as humans, fully dimensional, possessing hidden strengths yet simultaneously capable of thoughtless and mean behaviors. Duncan's talent becomes apparent when you finish the book, despite full awareness of the wrongs committed by the people within it, feeling great sympathy and tenderness for all members of Nathan's family, including Nathan himself.

The review on the front cover of the NY Times Book Review says it all: "A bracing new novel... Duncan gives us an afterlife swept clean of comforts and distractions, where nothing but the fading sounds of present life and the odd echo of the past can disturb the spooky quiet of the naked self. . . . It works brilliantly because the arduous, complex process of extracting meaning from one's own life is [Duncan's] true subject -- it's what's really on his mind. This is less a novel about death than a novel about thinking, written by someone who's done enough of it to know that it's a distinctly mixed blessing, necessary but not always sufficient; that a fair amount of courage is required to do it properly; and that sometimes -- sometimes for entire lives -- we're just not quite in the mood. In this superb, uncoercively moving novel, the afterlife is the place where thinking is all that's left to us, which makes it both heaven and hell."