Kevin Brockmeier's novel The Brief History Of The Dead opens in a city that goes on forever. Inside, nobody ages, although everyone eventually disappears. People keep busy with jobs, lovers, books, movie theaters, and museums. Some residents stick around for decades, while others barely hang around at all. It's a city of the dead, and its rules are simple: People continue to live lives that echo life on Earth, so long as someone living remembers them. It isn't heaven, but it isn't bad, either. Then, without warning, the population begins to empty out. Meanwhile, back on Earth in the near future, Laura Byrd sits alone in a Coca-Cola-sponsored Antarctic research station and slowly discovers she might be the only human who will survive a worldwide pandemic.
The two developments are, naturally, related, and over alternating chapters, Brockmeier draws them together. But The Brief History Of The Dead is less about the metaphysics of the afterlife than a bittersweet fantasy about having some extra time to kiss life goodbye. As Laura struggles to survive and find other survivors, she's startled by the details of life that return to her: a strange traffic incident, an afternoon spent trying to free a trapped wasp, her last day with a summer lover. Meanwhile, her parents discover that the afterlife has shaved the rough edges from their marriage, and the summer boyfriend finds true love with Laura's best friend.
Brockmeier slips in some jabs while projecting a world where terrorism has become a part of everyday life and fear is another marketing strategy, but the tone remains wistful and forgiving. The city of the dead is less a place of second chances than a postscript allowing for a few corrections. The sun rises and sets, but the mood of the place casts everything in a sunset glow, letting it shine before covering it in darkness.
The only trouble is that the book, like life in the city itself, starts to repeat itself, and after a tour de force opening chapter, it crawls toward an inevitable conclusion. Brockmeier's prose never loses its lyricism, however, and his slow-motion fade-to-black has such a beguiling sadness that it's easy to want to savor even life's most mundane pleasures after leaving its pages.