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With Kevin Brockmeier’s 2003 Nebula Award-nominated short story looking set to make it to the big-screen in 2007, we take a look at the novel that story has already spawned.

The Brief History Of The Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

Award-winning Arkansas writer Kevin Brockmeier takes us on a trip to a strange - yet familiar - 'netherworld' in his first full novel to be published in the UK.

A blind man arrives in a city and tells the people he meets that he has arrived there following a trip across the desert, a trip before which he seems to have died. Another man finds himself in what appears to be the same ‘city’ – and picks up where he left off in the ‘real’ world: working in print journalism (here on a more modest scale, hand printing his own ‘News & Speculation Sheet’, which he gives out on the streets.

All over this strange yet familiar – and seemingly limitless - city the questions on the numberless populations' lips are all the same: ‘where are we?’, ‘does anyone know what happened?’, ‘Is this the afterlife – or something...else?’

Meanwhile, in a more recognisable version of our own modern (at least ‘near future’) world someone else finds herself in another place entirely: alone, on the the far edge of the world...Laura Byrd is in trouble. Three weeks ago she and her friends found themselves alone in one of the coldest, most remote places on earth: a research station in the icy wilderness of the arctic. Her friends and colleagues have long-since set out in search of help, and now Laura begins to realise that they may not be coming back. So - finally - she gathers her remaining supplies and sets out on an extraordinary journey across the frozen wastes, hoping against hope to survive her solitary journey unaided.

Memories

Some of the characters the reader meets in the ‘city’ story start to think about ways to communicate with their loved ones back in the ‘real’ world (wherever that may be). Some settle fairly easily into a strange, yet familiar version of their old lives and are helped in this by discovering there are people in the city they know. Some are relatives, some are acquaintances, former co-workers or – they each soon realise – are the faces they know of people they never took the time to get to know before. This might be the man who shares the commuter bus or train with them each morning; the little girl who lives across the street they never knew the name of, the homeless man on the street corner or the self-appointed preacher with the religious banners they always avoided.

Each has a different story to tell, but their accounts have one thing in common – each person remembers that whatever their last memory was it was of something like a final journey. This place – wherever it may be – appears to be a city of the recently departed – with the link (aside from alternating chapters in the same book) between them and Laura's fateful journey lying at the heart of Kevin Brockmeier's remarkable novel.

More and more people arrive every day ubtil it seems that the world they all knew might be emptying out. What is happening to the world they left behind? Worse still ore discover – as does the reader – that not only are people arriving in the city, but they’re disappearing from it too...

The reader follows the rapidly intertwining lives of the many and varied characters as the plot switches delightfully from 'real world' to the 'city' setting with each alternating chapter. In this way suspense is well maintained as the narrative unfolds - in a similar way to the unpicking of plot revelations and deuctions in a superior piece of detective fiction.

Praise from the critics for Kevin Brockmeier and the The Brief History of the Dead:

“...his confident voice, observational brilliance and playful humour dazzle to the end. Brockmeier has two O. Henry Awards under his belt for good reason.” - Sarah Emily Miano, The Times

“Unique and spellbinding...Brockmeier is up to something different.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Brockmeier investigates our capacity for wonder … and the result is exacting and perfectly strange’ - The New Yorker

‘Sure-to-be-acclaimed fiction mixes with travelogue...Gripping – and moving – stuff.’ - Sunday Times Travel Magazine (February 2006).

“A spellbinding novel’ - Amy Worth, lead account manager, books, Amazon; Bookseller/February Booksellers’ choice.

“His confident voice, observational brilliance and playful humour dazzle to the end.” - The Times.

A Brief History of the Dead tells a magical story about our lives - about our place in the world, our connections with each other, and what happens to us all after our deaths. It is a story of lives, loves, memories, imagination and hope - despite featuring a pandemic outbreak, some harrowing frostbite and a fair few heartbreaking moments - which resonates long after the final page.

The New Yorker

The opening chapter of this book apparently appeared as a ‘stand alone’ item in the The New Yorker magazine - and caused a great deal of interest from a large number of that magazines' readers as to what could possibly happen next. Here's a plan then: pop into a bookshop, read the first few pages and see how they felt. If you're not so intrigued that you want to read the rest of the book I'd be utterly amazed.

The feature film rights to the book have already been sold – with the production expected to be shot along the lines of a genre-spanning drama, touching on the ‘supernatural romance’ end of the scale (think films like the US remake of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire or A Matter of Life and Death). A rumoured director for the Warner Brothers film is Chris Columbus, with David Auburn strongly tipped to be involved in the script for the big-screen version.

Kevin Brockmeier is also the author of the currently out of print short story collection Things That Fall from the Sky, The Truth About Celia and the children’s novel City Of Names. His second children’s book: Grooves: A Kind Of Mystery is also due out later this year.

The author lives in Arkansas in the USA. His short stories have won many awards. The Brief History Of The Dead is his first novel to be published in the UK.

The Brief History of the Dead is published as a 272 page hardcover by Hodder Murray, priced £12.99.

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