Brockmeier, Kevin: The Brief History of the Dead
The Brief History of the Dead
Writer: Kevin Brockmeier
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 252
I consider myself a big fan of literary SF, or rather fiction that carries an SF concept but is found on the fiction shelves instead of the Science Fiction/Fantasy shelves. Not every book of this genre is a hit for me, but that doesn't stop me from getting really excited when I come across one.
So when I found Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead, I was beside myself with glee. I waited oh-so-patiently for the trade paperback, but let the book sit on my shelf forever for whatever reason. And I have to say, I wanted to like this book so much more than I did.
The premise: there's a preface/quote that pretty much explains the entire concept of the book, too long to quote here, but to sum it up: there are three stages of life: life on earth, life after death, and a final death. The life after death is an existence that lasts only so long as there's someone on Earth that still remembers you. When there's no one left on Earth who remembers you, you pass on to the final death. So The Brief History of the Dead takes place in a future where a pandemic is wiping out humanity at an alarming rate, and the City which holds everyone after their first death is suddenly brimming and then suddenly nearly empty. The survivors in the City find each other and find their common link: a woman named Laura Byrd, who might be the last human alive on Earth. She's trapped on an Antarctic research station, and her hopes for survival are slim. But as long as she's alive, so are the dead.
Spoilers.
I'll be honest. This was a really boring book for me, and that made me very sad. It's not like I was expecting an action-packed novel either. I was looking for something poignant, something beautiful, something enlightening. Instead, I get maybe three moments of beauty in the entire book (and for a short book so heavily packed with exposition and narration, that's bad), and a whole lot of, well, nothing.
Let's be clear: the reader knows EXACTLY what's going on. If you read the blurb on the back of the book, you know. If you read the preface/quote at the start, you know. There is no mystery, and yet the characters in the book, in the City, treat it as such. There's no wonder or beauty to be found in characters pondering something the reader already knows, and this happens in both the City of the dead and with Laura in Antarctica. I'll touch on her story in a minute in order to focus on both parts of the story fairly.
What we get in the City is exactly what the title of the book is. A brief history of the dead. Each point of view character gives us clues or tells us directly how his/her life relates to Laura's, or later we'll get the final clue from Laura herself. Maybe Brockmeier just did too good a job at showing a normal person's interstices with other people, but frankly, the people we meet really aren't that interesting. I'll give some credit to the blind man, who begins and ends the story, but that's it. Laura's parents felt too distant to be sweet despite their second chance, and a lot of that was because the mother is a woman who is too overly conscious of her facial expressions and therefore has squashed them her entire life. That's not poignant or fascinating to me, that's just shallow. Then there's the religious fanatic who adds nothing to the story but sorry humor, then the executive of Coca-Cola who manages to reveal how Coca-Cola was the unwitting agent in spreading the pandemic. But none of this is interesting.
And let me rant a bit: I may not have noticed if not for a writer friend of mine posting this discussion in a discussion group about using real people's names and real companies in your fiction and whether or not that was okay: the general consensus was that it was okay provided you aren't painting the real company in a negative light, as that might be grounds for a lawsuit or something. Now, maybe this consensus is complete bullshit. It must be, because Brockmeier paints the Coca-Cola company, and therefore the Coca-Cola brand, in a ridiculous and stupid light, and by making them the unwitting agent of the pandemic. Well. I can't believe the author got away with this instead of creating a company that's an obvious paraody of the real thing instead. Get it? Real thing? I kill myself! :)
Anyway. The problem with the stories in the City is that it's merely patchwork. There's no real story connecting them all, just a person, and even that person doesn't show up in each person's narrative because Laura obviously remembers people she didn't know. How can you forget a crazy religious guy shouting at people in a park, you know?
But let's talk about Laura. Oh, how I disliked this oh-so-passive character. Furthermore, even though her first chapter pretty much admits and explains to the reader that the whole expedition, funded by Coca-Cola, is a complete farce, OHMIGOD!!!! It's beyond a farce, it's unbelievable even FOR a farce. Let's face it, media stunt or not, these people ARE NOT QUALIFIED to be down there, and while I know Brockmeier's done some research (he even provides us with his sources at the end), I don't believe a bit of it. Not. One. Bit. I guess my own personal research and the masterpiece otherwise known as Dan Simmons's The Terror has pretty much ruined me.
And aside from the complete ridiculousness of it all, I cannot believe that Laura was such a passive idiot. No, really, I mean that. You live in a future where terrorist attacks and biological agents are an honest-to-God THREAT, and it doesn't occur to you to be really paranoid about why all the communication devices aren't working? Where everyone is? Why no one's coming for help? REALLY? So Laura just sits around, paces, and remembers random events of her life while waiting for someone to get her, and when no one does and her equipment fails, she packs up and goes to the nearest station for help, only to do the same thing all over again. Stupidly, even after she learns what has likely felled the whole of humanity, she doesn't get the final clue in Joyce's journal that before he and Puckett leave, HE'S GOT THE BLINKS!!! It's so obvious. Or maybe that's me since I'm reading the book, but really. There's nothing subtle about it. And stupidly, even though she knows there's a snowball's chance in hell that someone could answer a radio signal if it got through, she goes to the station where the penguins are in hopes that the radio THERE is stronger, and she might run into Joyce and Puckett along the way. Dummy. I hope the Mountains of Madness eat you.
But what truly works against the novel is the voice. There's a passive quality to the voice, a lack of confidence, even a ho-hum quality to the rhythm of the prose that just doesn't charm or seduce me as a reader. So while there's so many details about the Antarctic experience that might very well be correct, I just don't believe the author. I don't. He's done nothing, save for a cool premise, to earn my trust as a reader, and even with a cool premise, he sucks all the life right out of it.
It's bad when I'm reading the book and thinking, "Okay, if I were writing this story, I'd do this, this, and THIS."
We never find out why Laura never got the virus. It's pretty clear it's the elements that do her in, and my only theory is that she never drinks Coca-Cola products because she works for them, though later, when we learn that Coca-Cola was the unwilling agent, that the virus mutated and became airborne, so wouldn't that mean people would get it even if they didn't consume the product?
And then there's the ending itself. I expected that once Laura dies, we'd see an empty city. Instead, the city starts imploding on itself, but all the people, all those who've died that Laura remembers, are still in the City, waiting to cross over to the final death. Not that they realize what's happening until the last minute. Idiots. It should've been obvious when the heartbeat STOPPED and the City started shrinking.
So the book ends with a whimper, and I finish it with a grumble. That's me.
My Rating
Wish I'd Borrowed It: oh, I wanted to like this book so much more than I did, but it wasn't meant to be. I think I've been spoiled by better stories told about the Arctic/Antarctic, as well as just better woven stories period. The sense of wonder is completely smashed because there is no wonder, no surprise, because the reader has it all figured out (not that there's really supposed to be any mystery) before the characters do, and the longer it takes the characters to figure stuff out, the dumber those characters look. This book did not charm or seduce me in anyway, so I'm glad it was as short as it was. I'm not sure I would've kept going if it were longer.
Next up:
Idlewild by Nick Sagan