The best thing about this book is that it’s short. A close second is the fabulous writing. However, the plot is bizarre. Actually, there are two storylines that
intersect eventually. The first is a
series of letters written by a rooming house proprietor shortly after the Civil
War. She describes a handsome lodger who
seems to be John Wilkes Booth, although she never says so. The second storyline is the one that is extremely
weird and unfortunately occupies most of the pages. Finn is a history teacher who doesn’t believe
in homework and who doubles as a math teacher.
He sits at the bedside of his dying brother who is hanging on to life by
watching the World Series. Then Finn
gets a phone call demanding that he drive halfway across the country because
something has happened to his mentally ill ex-girlfriend, Lily. He immediately abandons his brother and jumps
in the car. It turns out that Lily has
finally accomplished the suicide she has always wished for. However, her wish
for her body to be given to the Body Farm, the forensic anthropology site at
the University of Tennessee, was not fulfilled. Finn is completely enthralled with Lily--dead
or alive, it seems, and she’s actually in some kind of undead state--maybe. Anyway, why is Finn with the dead(?)
ex-girlfriend who didn’t want to live and not with the brother who does? Also, how does Finn do such a massive amount
of driving on almost no sleep?
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