The Brief History of the Dead

Brockmeier, Kevin. The Brief History of the Dead. New York: Pantheon, 2006; Vintage 2007.

Reviewed by Rebecca Stuhr

This futuristic tale forsees the end of the human race both living and dead, or perhaps more precisely, the living-dead. Brockmeier alternates the chapters of his novel between their two worlds. The City of the living-dead resembles a city on earth—filled with public transportation, buildings, restaurants, shops, and people from all walks of life. There is pain, happiness, love, and loneliness, but there is no aging or death. People cross over from life into death, and at some point disappear. As the novel begins, a sudden upsurge in the population is followed by a sudden evacuation of the population. It slowly becomes clear to those left in the city that many of them have something in common—and that is that they knew or were known by Laura Byrd. Laura Byrd, as it turns out, may be the sole surviving human on earth. She is sent to Antarctica to conduct a wild-life survey with two other Coca-Cola scientists just before an über-virus sweeps through earth’s human population. Back in Antarctica, Laura finds herself alone and suddenly without electricity or heat. Laura makes two superhuman journeys through the sub-zero temperatures, ice and snow of Antarctica in an attempt to reconnect with her world beyond the South Pole. Brockemeier relied on Ice: Stories of Survival from Polar Exploration (edited by Chris Willis) and Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World for his detailed depiction of Laura Byrd’s Antarctic travels. The details of her journey are horrifying and fascinating and unimaginable (unless you’ve read Nicola Davies's Extreme Animals ….see below)

Besides the intriguing notion of a life after death through the memory of the living, Brockmeier’s future realizes many of the fears we live with today, including climate change, bio-terrorism, and unethical, undisciplined, and uncontrolled corporate behavior. But, along side Brockmeier’s dystopia, there is also a benevolent view of our human need for each other, our ability to nurture and sustain each other, and, even as we seem hell-bent on destryong ourselves, our very will to live and our love for life. Although this is not a light-hearted novel by any means, there are humorous moments. And despite the bleakness of a world pandemic and the annihilation of the human race, Brockmeier's prose evokes beauty and peace. Finally, not to make light of Byrd’s epic struggle, but this reviewer can’t help but wish that Laura Byrd had read up on how penguins huddle together to survive the Antarctic temperatures (see review of Nicola Davies's book on Extreme Animals below) before heading off on her sledge. It’s a fact that might have come in handy when her last heating coil gave way.

Brockmeier is also the author of The Things that Fall from the Sky published in 2002 by Pantheon Books. 1st floor PS3602.R63 T48 2002.

Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth

Davies, Nicola. Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth. Illustrated by Neal Layton. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2006.

Reviewed by Rebecca Stuhr

Many animals are tougher than humans! Those of you who pride yourself for participation in extreme sports should take a half-hour break from your training and exertions to read Davies’s book on extreme animals. You have to read all the way to the end (p. 58) to find out which creature wins the toughest-animal-on-earth award but here’s a hint—it can be boiled, frozen to absolute zero, can survive a vacuum or pressure six times the pressure at the deepest part of the ocean and it isn’t a cockroach. Don’t skip to the end of the book though, because if you do, you’ll miss the fascinating facts about sponges (this reviewers favorite!), click beetles, thermophiles, and wood frogs (a close second). You won’t learn about “squash factor,” brain cooling mechanisms, collapsible lungs, and animal antifreeze. If you already know about animals that are “Truly Tough,” then you might want to read this book anyway for Neal Layton's informative and entertaining illustrations. You might imagine drawing some of these pictures yourself—but their somewhat slapdash appearance is more than made up for by the humorous and inventive way Layton interprets Davies’s extreme animal facts. Humans, please sit down and make way for the truly extreme animal survivors. This book is cataloged as juvenile literature, but reading this book will provide pleasurable and edifying reading for all ages. Recommend it to your local public library! (Read up to the next review to find it out why Laura Byrd would have done well to read this book before embarking on her trip to the Antarctic).

The Ransom of Russian Art

McPhee, John. The Ransom of Russian Art (illustrated).
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994

Reviewed by Philip Kintner

The title of this book may be misleading, and the content is certainly different from most of McPhee’s many sorties. However, his approach to the material through a leading figure, a trademark characteristic, is in place here, for the central character is an American obsessed with collecting Russian art, who, like McPhee, was not equipped to determine relative merits of the various artists and their works. But by collecting, at his own expense and with great risk, literally thousands of pieces, large and small, all illegally, and smuggling them out of Russia during the period after World War II when freedom of artistic expression was forbidden, he preserved an otherwise lost world of Russian art. How he did it, and why, are questions explored in this brief but well-written book, which fits elegantly with the current Faulconer Gallery exhibition, “The Space of Freedom” [March 2007]. Many of the “ransomed” (better: “rescued”) art works came from just such secret showings of artists’ work to other artists. Though not without faults, McPhee’s book reveals well the cloak-and-dagger efforts of one determined individual to prevent the destruction of a generation of innovative art.

2nd floor N 6988 .M33 1994