I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney

Recently divorced obituary writer Bud Stanley is in a funk. One drunken evening, he publishes his own obituary on his paper’s website. For this flamboyant piece of creative writing,  his immediate termination is only avoided because HR cannot determine how to legally fire a dead person. While his fate is being decided, he and his neighbor Tim (who has a car and impeccable poise) attend the wakes and funerals of total strangers.   In time, Bud learns how to live again. 

I loved this book, which I read in a weekend. Darkly humorous and poignant.

WHO WROTE IT

John Kenney is the New York Times bestselling author of Love Poems for Married People and the novels Talk to Me and Truth in Advertising, which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker and lives in Larchmont, New York.

WHAT OTHER REVIEWERS SAY

Booklist (starred review): “Razor-sharp, darkly comedic, and emotionally piercing. With the satirical bite of Richard Russo’s Straight Man, the introspection of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, and the reinvention of Andrew Sean Greer’s Less, Kenney’s vivid prose transforms the mundane into unexpected hilarity.”