The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier

“Which do you like better? The other world or this one?”

You die and wake up in a giant city. The city is very much like the ones found on the Earth you knew in life: apartment buildings, divey diners, giant corporations, mom ‘n pop stores, bums on the sidewalks, overflowing trash cans. But somehow, this city – The City of The Dead – is better than anything you experienced while you were alive.

There’s a “what if” game that’s fun to play: What if you could go back to high school (or “your twenties” or “elementary school”) with everything you knew now? What pitfalls would you avoid? What mistakes would you correct? What encounters would you risk?

In The Brief History of the Dead, this is exactly the sort of scenario Kevin Brockmeier envisions for his version of Heaven; not eternal perfection, but knowledge and second chances. One couple, after living decades in an apathetic marriage, rediscovers their love for one another. Another man casts off the office world and fulfills his lifetime dream of operating a restaurant. Each character is literally given a second chance and most take it.

The trappings of a universal and perfect heaven are disregarded as illogical; because how could “perfection” be universal? These tiny happinesses are only exist for each individual character and are made all the sweeter because they were given the chance to choose their happiness.

“This one.”