Among the Dead: A Novel

by Michael Tolkin

Overview

Michael Tolkin's acclaimed second novel, Among the Dead, is an arresting examination of public and private grief in the wake of unspeakable disaster, a slow-burning tour de force of psychological fiction. When Frank Gale writes a passionate letter to his wife confessing an affair, he hopes all can be forgiven on the warm beaches of Mexico. But the farewell kiss of his girlfriend causes him to miss the flight carrying his wife and daughter, and when he learns that their plane has crashed in a crowded city, his life changes in the course of seconds. Soon Frank's letter is discovered among the dead, and suddenly one man's struggle to comprehend his loss and grief becomes consumed in a media circus of legal drama, family quarrels, and public scandal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802138828
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/10/2002
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

The author/screenwriter of The Player scores again in this drolly morbid novel, a gleefully vicious combination of satire and propulsive storytelling. The night before L.A. businessman Frank Gale is to take his wife, Anna, and daughter to Mexico, he writes a letter he plans to give Anna on their arrival, confessing an affair and asking for her understanding. Next day, he breaks up with his mistress at lunch but misses the flight. Frank calls Anna from his limo phone, promising to follow her on the next plane out. She tells him she has found the letter in his suitcase, but boards the aircraft anyway; the plane crashes, killing everyone. Among the Dead is, on one hand, the excruciatingly detailed story of the aftermath of such an airline disaster--the claiming of bodies, the legal maneuvering with the airline, the media sensationalism. On the other hand, it is the chronicle of Frank's private anguish, in an interior monologue just absurd enough to be believable. Tolkin has carefully plotted Frank's unravelling so his descent is absolute, the kind of breakdown that is impossible to look away from, where the worst you can imagine happens, and proves horrible and uproarious at the same time. Uniquely incompetent despite his sharp eye, Gale is both repugnant and compellingly human, a creation worthy of J. P. Donleavy. Author tour. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this novel, which could be titled Worst-Case Scenario, we follow the thoughts and actions of Frank Gale, whose wife and daughter are killed in the crash of a flight he was supposed to be on as well. Gale misses the flight because he is having a final lunch with his mistress, before ending the affair. He had intended to give his marriage a fresh start on vacation. Tolkin, author of The Player ( LJ 6/15/88), which was made into a successful movie in 1992, takes us inside the mind of Gale as he tortures himself, imagining every possible sequence of events that might have happened. Sometimes the narrative's primary form of punctuation is the question mark. But despite the unpleasantness of the subject matter, this is a highly readable novel, one that is difficult to put down and that succeeds on the highest level as a dark comedy of morals. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/92.-- David Dodd, Benicia P.L., Cal.

Library Journal