This week’s Nonfiction November festivities are being hosted over on Liz’s site Adventures in reading, running, and working from home, with the prompt being:

“Book Pairings: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read, and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or maybe it’s just two books you feel have a link, whatever they might be. You can be as creative as you like!”

This week’s challenge was fun because both of these books are fun as they revolve around the world inhabited by obituary writers. The novel, I See You Called in Dead by John Kenney, is a new one that came out this year, and the nonfiction I matched with it is the amazing 2006 book The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson.

Kenney’s I See You Called in Dead starts off so quickly with a bunch of things happening in the first 30 pages. Here’s the setup: a tired and ready-to-give-up obituary writer has a night of drunken weakness (dwelling on his ex-wife’s current life without him) where he logs into his work network and writes an amazingly humorous and lie-ridden obituary for himself. The next morning, the world believes he is dead. The next afternoon, he gets put on paid leave as the company decides what to do (the computer won’t let them fire someone who is already dead). He spends the rest of the novel going through his personal relationships as well as attending the funerals of random people around the city. 

While the book has lots of fun people and a quirky plot, there were two things I really enjoyed: first, New York City. The book is dripping with the sights and sounds of the city, and it was fun; second, every once in a while, Bud or a friend would have a moment of clarity about something profound (the city or the role of news) or see the edges of some universal truth. There are some really big “wake up call” kind of moments that will stay with you once you’ve finished reading. The book is so well done and even fun to read as it balances ideas of life/death among all the weird happenings and sarcastic remarks. Just like life.

While that novel deals with an obituary writer dealing with life and visiting funerals, Johnson’s The Dead Beat deals with real-life obituary writers as well as some of the lives and deaths behind the articles. This book is such a fun read.

Some of the obituaries are absolutely brutal, some are eye-watering sweet, and they all add up to a true snapshot of humanity. The book was written almost 20 years ago, so the internet doesn’t figure in as much as it would today (and I think that is kind of refreshing). Johnson interviews obituary writers, readers, and even goes to an Obituary Writers’ Conference. I had no idea how many people read the obituary page each day. She does a good job of showing the art, humor, and humanity behind every column inch that gets published.

I hope you all have found some good nonfiction books this month. And I hope you have someplace to share and get others excited about your reads. Book people are the best people, and the internet is at its best wherever there is a vibrant book community.