Very much a "premise" book, but much more affecting than one would expect. ( )

Looking back, this was one of my two favorite reads of 2007. I liked the premise, and I especially liked the City and how people lived in it. It was just reassuring.

I agree that the real-world Antarctica parts weren't as interesting, not least because the character wasn't particularly distinctive, but I could live with that.

I'm glad I didn't read any reviews before I bought this. I think they all gave away too much of the plot. I liked not knowing what was going to happen.

I bought the book because I'd read the first chapter in the New Yorker. You can read it too : http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003... ( )

Beautiful story. The dual point of view was a nice touch. It was a real quick read...finished it in one night. ( )

Story of the end ofthe world. Paralllel worlds one in which those that have died but live on this world since someone truly still living has a memory of them and the other the planet aerth where an epidemic is occurring due to a a toxic virus that has been spreadthrough Coca-cola. The story is of a woman in Antartica and her struggle to survive. ( )

This is a remarkable novel, speculating to a great deal on how the afterlife might happen. People live in a rather interesting city, with people coming in from live, and disappearing when their last acquantance dies on earth. This story, almost reverie, perhaps religious, is interspersed with the survival of Laura in the Antarctic. There is even a final consummation of sorts, but not reflective of most known religious traditions.

The conceit of the novel is that there is a final plague on earth and then you're left with a enigmatic centerpoint. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. I came away from it with two impressions: First, that all of us matter to more people than we realize. That the simplest encounter can create a connection between two people that can last a lifetime. That random acts of kindness connect us to other people more strongly than we realize. Second, (as cheesy as it sounds) we all only get one chance to live our lives. When Laura's mother talks about wanting solitude so she could wait for something great and exciting to happen upon her, instead of either enjoying the exciting things she already had or going out and looking for those opportunities herself, I couldn't help but think that the author was making the point that we shouldn't wait until the afterlife to do the things we've always wanted to do.

A light read, but not really a great story. Brockmeier could have done so much more with this story, so the superficial treatment left me dissapointed. ( )

This is a lovely lyrical novel with more of a stream of thought then a plot. It has no definite ending and I think it makes it all the better. The descriptions were beautiful and well painted. The characters were real and compelling in their short vignettes of stories. ( )

This book surprised me by not having a plot so much as an idea. There are stories, character trajectories, but once you know the main premise (it's not hard to find, either, the book starts out with an anthropological quote basically explaining it) it is essentially a book-length thought experiment. Which isn't a bad thing. It was just as entertaining as a more plot-driven work, it just surprised me a bit. Anyway, it was a very interesting and thoughtful exploration of human memory and mortality and the relationship between the two. I particularly liked when one character was trying to enumerate all of the people he could remember- it inevitably got me trying to do the same, and it is remarkable how many there could be. I also liked the main character, Laura - she was well characterized and seemed very much like she could be a real person. Overall an interesting foray into a surprisingly realistic seeming memory scenario. ( )

The first page of this book outlines an African belief system where humans come in three types. These types are:a) living people: thats us folks! The ones who are alive, moving around, making our way in the worldb) remembered people: these are those people who have died, but who are remembered by someone living.c) those who are general ancestors, who may be named, but aren't remembered by anyone currently alive.This is the basis for the book. Two strands run through the book. The first is the life of Laura, stranded in a polar base in Antarctica. The second is the population of the city of the remembered dead.There aren't any real twists or turns in the novel, the interest comes through the very human stories in the city of the dead. However the story is beautifully and enticingly told. Yet again my Mother-in-Law comes good (she suggested it to me!) ( )

I have never read a book quite like this in my life...very interesting, but I am unsure as to whether I "liked" it or not. ( )

Mesmerizing and magical; beautiful and bare; this tale of death and human connection will astonish you. One of my top reads for 2006! ( )

Laura Byrd is stranded in Antarctica, alone and with no contact with other people. Meanwhile, in the city of the dead, things are changing.

Its difficult to review this book without giving a lot of it away. So all I will say was that the writing was very good, and the plot was also well structured. I wanted to keep reading, and the characters (especially in the city of the dead) were fabulous. And the basic premise was a wonderful one, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed and that made me ponder a lot on what comes after.

I couldn't help feeling sad at the end, and possibly a tiny bit like I had been left hanging, but it made me think, it was enjoyable and I would certainly recommend it! If you like books like The Five People You Meet In Heaven, The Road, and The Lovely Bones, this had elements of all of them. Wonderful poetic writing, a plot that makes you think and want to know more, and characters that colour the book. What more can you ask? ( )

Summary

This novel takes place in an apocalyptic future where a lethal, fast moving virus has been released into the world, already suffering through a series of wars. It involves a fascinating concept of a City where humans live after their death as long as there is someone on Earth still alive who remembers them. Then they disappear from the City. In rather mundane afterlife, humans have no heartbeats, and don't age, but can apparently get injured.
As the deadly pathogen ravages the Earth, the population (and boundaries) of the City suddenly soar and then plummets until th citizens realize that the only people left are linked to the last survivor on Earth - Laura Byrd.
The story shifts between the lives and memories of the people in the City (Laura's parents, childhood friends, colleagues, a former lover, mail carriers, panhandlers, etc...) and Laura's long struggle to survive when her research mission in Antartica gets derailed.

Opinion
I was fascinated by the concept of this novel when I first heard the author interviewed on Fresh Air last year. Laura's chapters are a bit tedious, but moments of profound insight kept me going through the less interesting bits. I enjoyed most the early chapters that built up the details and "rules" of the Dead City. However, I wanted to know much, much more. For example:
When people "pop" into the city in random locations, how do they cope?
There are restaurants, but where does the food and other supplies come from?
Where does the garbage go?
What happens when couples parted at death meet and one now has a different
partner? ( )

In my estimation, this was a great book left unfinished. I feel like the final section of the heroine's story was padded and dragged (a bit painfully) out to compensate for the fact that - well, there is no ending. I can appreciate ambiguity, and I understand that the point of this tale was not to deliver a final metaphysical destination, tied up neatly with a bow on top. Yet, the fact remains that the question of what would happen to the characters that populated "the city" became the central force driving suspense and reader curiosity for the half the book... and for me, the meta-question of how the author would deal with it was equally compelling.

Unfortunately, he dealt with it by skipping out on the bill, in my opinion ... as though he lost enthusiasm for the project two-thirds of the way through, and just phoned the rest in - which is quite a shame, because otherwise this is a very, very good book. ( )

The Brief History of the Dead could have been an astounding book. The idea behind it was very interesting - that we go on "living" in the afterlife as long as someone who has known us is living in the real world.

It started off well, but I don't think the book worked with that amazing idea as well as it could have. About 3/4 of the way through it slowed down and lost its luster for me. I guess it's so disappointing because it could have been amazing and instead just ended up ok. ( )

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.

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.

The full review, which includes rather ranty spoilers, may be found in my LJ. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome.

REVIEW: Kevin Brockmeier's THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD

Happy Reading! :) ( )

What if mankind dies?

Who remembers the dead ones?

How will they live on? ( )

Laura is stranded in an Antartic research station while the rest of the world faces a pandemic. While she tries to figure out how to save herself, she ruminates on her life and the people who she has touched and who have touched her. Laura's memory sustains a city neighborhood full of ghosts who are waiting to cross over to the next peice of their existence. The ghosts arrive with dreamlike remembrances of their crossing after death to find a city which looks like the world they just left . The struggle for life in these parallel universes are intertwined by the power of memory.

Brockmeier has constructed a truly unique story. There are shades of a C.S. Lewis book I read many years ago describing a purgatory-like existence for those who have died. There are shades of a Jon Krakauer adventure. There are dystopian shades which call to mind Orwell or Dick, with a litle Matrix sprinkled over. All of this is tied together with a solid, exciting story with a compelling central character. In fact, if I have any criticism, it is that Brockmeier spent too little time with Laura. I took a half bone because I would have liked to know more about Laura and gotten to kjnow her better.

That said, the method Brockmeier uses to fill us in on Laura and her life is to let us get to know the people in her life who are depending on her survival for theirs. This was both facinating and very rewarding.

Another recommendation for this book is in Brockmeier's ability to recount dreams and dream-like experiences. Often, writers do not hit the mark with such efforts, putting to paper unusual or scary or disjointed happenings to get across a dream. Brockmeier's dreams, however, have the taste of real dreams; they feature a stream of conciousness but always with a unifying theme of some kind; they are rich in details, colors, smells, and feelings; and they are fitted together with the events of the characters life and circumstances so tightly.

41/2 bones!!!!! ( )

Post-apocalyptic/sci-fi book about a somewhat alternate world where the dead “live” after departing this mortal coil; they stay in “the city” as long as there is a person alive here on Earth who remembers them, but once anyone who knew or remembers them dies, they disappear from the city never to be seen again. When a viral plague sweeps across our world, killing everyone except for one woman, Laura Byrd, who survived only because she was on an expedition in Antarctica and was unexposed to it, the population in the city dwindles down to only those whom Laura has memories of (although not all of them know her)—not very many people in the grand scheme of things—although more than you might think! The story is told from the viewpoint of Laura back on ‘our’ world and several others of those who have died and “live” in the alternate world in the city—Laura’s parents, an old lover, a blind man she used to chat to on the street, one of the men who was with Laura’s expedition, etc. Once I started listening to this, it was very difficult to stop! It was a rather short book (only about 10 hours long, and yes, that was the unabridged version) though a very interesting one, too. Highly recommended as it combines several of my favorite types of books all into one—plague fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, fantasy and death fiction! ( )

If asked to score this novel at the halfway point, I'd have given it four stars. Every page after that, however, served to lower my score. Finally, what has to be one of the weakest endings of any novel I've ever read, dropped my final mark to two stars.

The premise of the novel, while perhaps not totally original (Riverworld comes to mind), was nonetheless interesting and full of potential. Like one of the other reviewers, the existence of a sort of Purgatory where the dead reside for as long as they are remembered by the living, raised more questions than it answered. The parallel story line of the Antarctic adventures of Laura Byrd, presumably the last person living on the Earth, I found to be captivating. Again, however, it strains belief that only one person survived a killer virus. I suspect that there are at least tens of thousands of people that live extremely isolated existences.

After the first half of the book, I felt that the story line began to drag. The last 30 pages were monumentally bad. The final chapter dealing with the Laura Byrd thread was actually unreadable (almost stream of consciousness). After about five pages, I skipped the remainder of the chapter. The novel finally ends with no resolution whatsoever.

I concur wholeheartedly with reviewers who argue that what began as an enticing and award winning short story, was wholly unsuited for what became almost a novella. Interestingly, I think this is the sort of story that either needs to be very short or very long. Extending it without fleshing out all the issues or reaching a resolution diminishes the final product. ( )

Adore this. Best book of my year so far. ( )

This was an imaginative book. Well written. It is a fantastic idea. It was written well enough that it was easy to buy into the idea. ( )

Throughout this novel I kept finding myself trying to figure out how it was all going to come full circle and how things were going to wrap up. Interesting premise: after dying, people remain in the limbo-type afterlife as long as someone still on earth remembers them; meanwhile, the population on earth is gradually wiped out by pandemic until one lonely person remains. For the most part this book just depressed me & I was waiting for a climactic ending of some sort. But instead, I was left with a "WTF?!" ending. Lots of reviewers have thought it fully appropriate. I was just disappointed. ( )

I just finished this book and now I need to go to CuteOverload.com and stare at pictures of puppies before I wander drained of all hope into on-coming traffic. Phew somebody please buy Kevin Brockmeir a balloon bouquet or give him a hug because this guy needs cheering up. I mean don't get me wrong, I like lots of sad, bleak books and I actually think the fatalistic ending was logical and necessary but throw me an interesting charater or a meaningful, complicated relationship every couple of hundred chapters to go with my bowl of cold, greedy, blind-boy kicking, cruel humanity. Had I actually read this book and not listened to the audio book I would have stopped reading after the first 100 pages I am sure and that's the main reason I gave it 2 stars. The effort of actually reading this would not have been worth it. However, the book was not without redeeming qualities, I was the most engaged when he explored the emotional life of the citizens of the City and I wanted more of that, such as Puckett searching for what became of his long-dead brother and the relationship between Puckett and Joyce. I also appreciate the writing, although at times it felt self-important and of course the premise itself is utterly beautiful and very thought provoking I just think the author needed more praise as a child:) and maybe a coke;). I also can't help wondering if a certain beverage company is a little peeved at him. ( )