MADreads

Sure, no one else likes him…

May 17th, 2007 Sarah - Alicia Ashman

…but I do.

I’m referring here to one of my very favorite authors: Jim Crace.  And I’m being overdramatic when I say that no one else likes him; he does, in fact, do all right (for a “literary fiction” author, anyway, these things are all relative) and he’s won the National Book Critics Circle Award, which is one of the more prestigious awards out there.

But every time I try to suggest that a reader take a crack at his novel Being Dead, I can never get past the book’s subject.  Here’s how the conversation goes: “Have you tried Jim Crace’s Being Dead?”  “What’s it about?”  “Well, um, this couple who are murdered on a beach; the structure of the novel follows the biological process of their decomposition, but the real story is the look back on their lives and their relationship.  It’s fascinating!”

At that point, whoever I’m talking to has fled away from me in fear.  But how about you?  Are you up to the challenge?  It’s been more than five years since I read it but I still remember its strange brand of beauty, so it was obviously a novel that stuck with me. 

Please note: For those of you not big on the decomposition angle, Crace is also the author of The Gift of Stones, a novel about a village of stoneworkers at the end of the Stone Age…facing the prospect of the end of their way of life.  (It’s also sad, but not quite as, ahem, biological.)

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction