Being Dead: A Review

I just finished reading the novel, Being Dead by Jim Crace, and if you haven't read it, you should. It's one of the best books I've read in a while. It's not up there with The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (if you love storytelling, this is a must buy), but it's awfully close. The story is about a seemingly odd, quirky, older couple who decide to revisit a place of their youth, a place where they consummated their feverish feelings and began the life they now have together. The wife is reluctant to go back to the place because of a tragedy that happened there, but the husband feels that going back will reignite part of the lust and fever they had at that time.

Tragically, the pair is killed at the place (and all I can say is though it's a bit graphic, the writing about this event is an extraordinarily beautiful pain), and this is where the story takes off. I'm not giving anything away to tell you they died. It happens so soon in the story, you'll flip back and ask yourself, "Wait, did someone just die?"

This story is about death, and it's about this couple's death, but it's about so much more. It's about the life the couple lived, the people who lived it with them, and the life that continues once the couple is gone.

I'm surprised more people haven't just raved about this book in a louder fervor because it is so touching. And just short of 200 pages, it is a quick read though I would guess that even longer, you'd rush to finish it because the writing is dead-on and visual, the structure is unique yet it works so well in the telling of this story, and the two main characters, though dead, are living, breathing beings because of Crace's craft as a writer.

Pick up a copy today @ Amazon.com and see for yourself.