May's Post-Apoc Book Discussion: Kevin Brockmeier's Brief History of the Dead
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Laura Miller said in her review for Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/books/review/2006/02/13/brockmeier): "This is one novel that gives a whole new meaning to the saying 'the living will envy the dead.'"
In The Brief History History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier poses the idea that the Great Beyond is a place kept running by the memories of the living. But what happens when the here and now is obliterated and memories exist no more?
The City is not unlike those on earth: it has parks and streets, stores and restaurants, garbage and homelessness --- all of the pleasures and problems of modern life. This City, however, is inhabited by the recently departed, who reside there only as long as they remain in the memories of the living. Among the current residents of this afterlife are Luka Sims, who prints the only newspaper in the City, with news from the other side; Coleman Kinzler, a vagrant who speaks the cautionary words of God; and Marion and Phillip Byrd, who find themselves falling in love again after decades of marriage.
On earth, Laura Byrd is trapped by extreme weather in an Antartic research station. She's alone and unable to contact the outside world: her radio is down and the power is failing. She's running out of supplies as quickly as she's running out of time.