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The Brief History of the Dead
The Brief History of the Dead
Author: Kevin Brockmeier
Audio Books swap for two (2) credits.
ISBN-13: 9781419369094
ISBN-10: 1419369091
Publication Date: 11/2006
Rating:
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 2

3.5 stars, based on 2 ratings
Publisher: Recorded Books
Book Type: Audio CD
Other Versions: Paperback, Hardcover
Members Wishing: 1
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review
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Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6
I heard about this book on NPR, and that's how I became interested in reading it. However, I was not overly impressed with how Brockmeier handled the premise he was working on. A case of a good idea with only mediocre follow through. What irritated me about the book is that besides the main character, the other key characters were barely developed, leaving the reader mostly unsatisfied. The most tiresome supporting characters seemed to get the most exposure, while the most interesting ones take a back seat.
Dartha avatar reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 102 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
Absolutely awesome! My five star ratings are few and far between, but The Brief History of the Dead gets five stars. This was one of those books that, once I get started on, make me want to scream at everyone around me to shut up so I can read!
reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 203 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
A dazzler of a book! Beautifully written. It's about people in a city that is filled with those who have departed the Earth but are still remembered by the living. "They will reside in the afterlife until they are completely forgotten."
5ducksfans avatar reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 92 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Whew - dark, fascinating. Hard to put down because I was trying to put all the pieces together. Brockmeier's tactic of going between two different worlds was very satisfying. He reveals just enough on each page for you to slowly, very slowly (in a good way) start to grasp the situation at hand. Very inventive idea.
reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Stayed with me, in a good way. Goes well with "Passages" by Connie Willis and A "Fine and Private Place", by Peter Beagle.
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schwip avatar reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 49 more book reviews
It was an unwelcome coincidence that I started reading this book just before the Ebola outbreak because this book's premise is a virus that wipes out everyone on earth. Once a person passes they live in another world as long as someone alive still remembers them. A dual story line is about a group of researchers in Antarctica. I will not tell any more but I would definately recommend this book. The end was a little bizarre but it eventually made sense.
maura853 avatar reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 542 more book reviews
A beautifully written, beautifully conceived little fairy tale. I almost wish it could have gone on forever, especially as I feel that the ending is the weakest part of the book.

Half of the novel is based on a gorgeous, appealing little wheeze. The afterlife (at least, the immediate afterlife) is neither Heaven nor Hell, but an ordinary City of day jobs and coffeeshops, minor inconveniences and random encounters, in which the Dead live as comfortably as they choose, as long as someone in the living world remembers them. Once the last living person who remembers them dies (and makes the transition to the City), they vanish, "softly and suddenly away" as Lewis Carroll would have said (and, indeed, "never be met with again.") No one knows where they go.

So, the City is a waiting room. It's a Purgatory, of sorts, but a very gentle and self-directed one. It's a place of choices, and --perhaps -- second chances: you can choose to be exactly the same obnoxious, work- and status-driven jerk you were in life. Or, you can choose to live the life you wished you'd been able to live when you were alive -- say, open up an greasy spoon diner, where you greet all of your customers by name, and serve up wonderful all-day breakfasts. If you enjoyed your life, you can carry on doing exactly what you used to do -- perhaps with the benefit of new friends, new lovers, or a new, revitalized relationship with someone you'd become stale with. All up to you.

As you have probably guessed, I unreservedly loved the half of the book set in the City. I loved the (seemingly) random focus on a different residents of the City in each chapter, stories that hinted at their connections to the world of the Living, hinted at the familiar yet slightly dystopian future of its backstory, and made some nicely timed revelations about the drama unfolding for the Living and the Dead. I loved the fact that Brockmeier kept the mechanics vague, and even a little illogical: there is money (there are a couple of beggars, and a crazy street preacher has some coins thrown at him by a woman who just wants him to leave her alone), but no sense that it's needed to get food at the diner, or paper for Luca Sims' homemade news sheet. And where does the food that's cooked and eaten, and the coffee that drunk in great quantities, and the paper come from? Dunno, don't really care. The City, for me, is a metaphor, in the very best sense, about love and the persistence of memory. Things that, you could argue, are pretty illogical themselves ...

My recollection, from my first reading of the novel about 10 years ago, was that I wasn't as blown away by the other half of the book -- the steadily unfolding drama of Laura Byrd, who is struggling to survive in Antarctica just as a particularly virulent virus is ripping across the globe. As I recalled, I understood Laura's story was necessary -- trying for no spoilers here (although I think you can guess what's what), but the deaths of so many people in the wider world, and Laura's dogged survival, has a great impact on the City -- provides what is, otherwise, just a nice wheeze with drama, mystery, something at stake.

So here's what's really interesting for me, on this rereading: reading it NOW (November 2020 -- hello from the Apocalypse, and Lockdown Hell, everyone ... :-), the chapters with Laura were, for the most part, brilliant. I don't know where Mr. Brockmeier got his crystal ball, but can I order one, please? Some of the offhand remarks about "the Blinks" (the terrible, highly contagious and almost instantly fatal disease) are painfully, well, funny, in a dark, black, bleak sort of way. From a diary entry, by one of Laura's companions ...

"There's every single indication that the virus has taken a global toll. What's the word I'm looking for? Not an epidemic, but a --? Can't remember ..."

Hmm, I think I can help you there (Later, down the page, he remembers. Pandemic. Yeah, I don't think we're going to forget that one for a while ...) And another one, from a teenager's blog the survivors discover, on an internet that it quietly folding in on itself, and vanishing (kind of like the City ...)

"A few of us are still asymptomatic. We're holed up in the high school gym, away from everybody else. If it wasn't for the stupid quarantine, we'd be long gone by now ..."

What breaks my heart -- and is SO DARN TRUE -- about that is how the high school jock throws around words like "asymptomatic" and "quarantine" as if they're the most natural things in the world. Brockmeier, in one line, captures how the virus even changes our vocabulary ...

Sadly, I am still not blown away by the final couple of chapter which IMHO, become too poetical, too airy-fairy. The real strengths of this fairy tale is how grounded it is, both in the ordinary, everyday world of the City, and in the snow and terrible loneliness of the Antarctic. BUT .. this is still a keeper, and highly recommended ...
ridiculousbadger avatar reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on + 33 more book reviews
Yo check it, this book, is like the greatest book I ever read, it's about this woman right, the last woman on earth, NOT Tom Cruise in the Last Samurai, not Fresh Prince/ID4 last man on earth, not book of Eli, but the last woman on Earth, but the hitch, she don't know she is the last woman so she is trying to find he fellow man, but there ain't nobody, oh yeah and she is stuck in Antarctica of all places. But get this every other Chapter is not about her it's about the people in the afterlife! All the people in her mind who live in a city in limbo happily or not-so happily ever after or at least until she kicks the can. This is a trippy spiritual book about survival and life after death. You meet all kinds of Characters and they each have touching stories.
reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on
Started off great with an interesting look at the world of the dead, and the concept that you only move through the afterlife (or middle life) once all the people that remember you on earth are dead. Really enjoyed it until the last couple of chapters, where is kind of just fizzled into nothing. Fun, quick and easy read though.
reviewed The Brief History of the Dead on
I really enjoyed this book.
It's been a long time since I have read something that I consider a refresing new idea. His view in this book really had me thinking, its not a book I will ever forget and I look forward to reading more of his works.


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