A Quick Note On This Review: This article includes affiliate links to Bookshop.org as a way of supporting both local bookshops and my own ability to write.
Bud Stanley is an obituary writer whose wife has recently left him for a “more interesting” man and has a bad luck streak that is hard to break. One night, after a blind date with a woman who wants to bring her ex, Bud has one too many glasses of Scotch, writes an obituary for himself, and decides to publish it, which is perhaps an ironic stroke of luck: the company wants to fire Bud for misusing resources, but the system has him listed as “dead,” and it’s against the law to fire a dead person. So, while the higher-ups try to sort out the paperwork with HR, Bud, encouraged by his best friend Tim, a worldly former art dealer bound to a wheelchair, attends wakes in the hope of finding out what it means to live.
I See You Called in Dead by John Kenney is a humorous take on the typical “searching for meaning in life from how it ends” story, which takes seemingly disparate pieces of society and weaves them into something both heartwarming and, at times, hilarious. Bud is kind of a contradiction: as an obituary writer who struggles to write an obituary that isn’t bland for a local newspaper, Bud isn’t exactly “successful” in the typical sense. Sure, he managed to get married – which dissolved after his own child dies – and has a cadre of friends in the characters around him – which he takes for granted – but none of this is particularly meaningful to Bud as it’s represented by Kenney. Instead, Bud takes it all as a cruel, deadpan joke which evokes some sympathy within the pages of the novel but highlights the absurdity of some of life’s main events.
What’s perhaps most striking about Kenney’s novel is that, through Bud, he’s able to simultaneously create a world where the protagonist is of the world without being fully engaged with it. This differentiates itself from stories with a similar focus in that it doesn’t present the protagonist as someone who is inherently ungrateful for the good in his life, but instead keeps it at a distance from himself, removing both the ability to feel pain and joy in the everyday acts of living. This focus on appreciation isn’t unusual, but the use of deadpan humor is somewhat unique in the way Bud moves through various relationships and allows Kenney to branch out his themes to include unique approaches to masculinity that are somewhat hard to find in today’s literary landscape.
For casual readers, I See You Called in Dead offers a humorous adventure through New York City and the soul of a journalist, so anyone looking for stories about writers trying to find meaning in their lives would likely enjoy the story. It’s also worth picking up if you’re a reader who enjoys books about male friendship that leads to insights about masculinity and the life well lived, because Kenney’s perspective on this is both valuable and entertaining.
For writers, there are multiple lessons that I See You Called in Dead offers. First and foremost, it’s valuable reading for anyone who is writing a story focused on finding meaning in life by contemplating death; Kenney’s novel offers multiple unique takes on the form which could be immensely useful in understanding new ways of presenting the same kinds of lessons. There’s also a lot of value in Bud’s relationship with Tim that is rare to see in modern works, so it’s worth reading to find new ways of presenting platonic male friendship without relying on ancillary themes that may not be as relevant to some audiences.
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What’s Next?
I am an avid reader and have quite a few thoughts on how some books could benefit both people that want to be entertained and those looking to sharpen their literary skills.
If you’re interested in finding out more about what I’ve been reading – and how it could benefit you – I will be publishing those thoughts on Fridays on a weekly basis. Check back next week for a discussion of Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Six!
The Writerly Review 