It has often been said that dead men tell no tales. Nathan Clark, however, can't stop talking. In this latest brimstone-tinged novel by British writer Duncan (I, Lucifer,
etc.), Clark, a recently deceased history teacher, appears at his own funeral, hovering over the mourners. Ghost-like, "a radical amputee... [n]o body, but a maddening imposture of sensation," he glides through the action, tuning into the thoughts of his father, Frank; his wife, Cheryl; his college-age son, Luke; and his daughter, 17-year-old Gina. A suffocating sadness surrounds these characters, not only because of Nathan's untimely end but also because of the recent violent death of Lois, Nathan's youngest child. As he attempts to order his memories, Nathan ponders the many facets of his love for prickly, ambitious Cheryl, despite her affair with his best friend; for clever, sensitive Gina; for self-contained Luke, a physics student; and for Lois, lovable swimmer and violinist. Duncan's exhilarating, almost exhausting flood of insight into family patterns of love and habit ("It was a grotesque lie, that you loved all your children equally") is matched by the rich unexpectedness of his writing and the complex construction of the narrative, which mimics the structure of thought. The mystery of Lois's death and the narrator's own death—symbolized by a dark room in the family house that Nathan's ghost is afraid to enter—give the novel a hint of suspense, but it's the steady stream of small revelations that gives it its power to haunt. Agent, Jane Gelfman at Gelfman Schneider. (Jan.)
Forecast:
Despite its superficial resemblance to
The Lovely Bones and other recent novels narrated from beyond the grave, this has more in common with Iris Murdoch's analytical chronicles of love and friendship.
