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My Life with Corpses: A
Novel
Now
Available!
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Read the origin of Corpses
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Wylene Dunbar blends a sharply defined reality with a soaring, surreal leap
of imagination in this story of an enigmatic narrator we know only as Oz, who
was raised on a Kansas farm by a family of corpses.
Since she was rescued by an iconoclastic neighbor named Winfield Evan Stark,
now long dead, Oz has stayed far away from her childhood home. However, Mr.
Stark’s grave has recently turned up empty -- occupied only by a pristine copy of
Oz’s narrative of her early life, entitled "My Life with Corpses." Oz, a
professor of philosophy, returns to help find his body, hoping to receive the
message she knows he is trying to send her. As she waits for two amiable
workmen to dig up a neighboring gravesite to see if Mr. Stark might have
switched resting spots, Oz reveals the peculiar details of her life and shares
her hard-won experience in detecting and avoiding the living corpsedom that has
befallen her family and so many others around her.
Oz recognizes and escapes a life of being dead by the narrowest of margins.
Her story is both a triumph and a cautionary tale, revealing how life can seep
treacherously away but also showing us how it can be restored again. Disturbing
and compelling, poignant and funny, My Life with Corpses is narrated with
an irresistible combination of intellect, irony, and outright sorcery. Indeed,
if Samuel Beckett had been born in Kansas, this is the book he might have
written.
Reviews
"blackly humorous, cerebral novel . . . straight-faced candor . . . an uncannily
convincing evocation of death and its counterpart, life." --Publishers
Weekly
"Dunbar's quirky
exploration of the thin line between life and death will appeal to fans of
surrealistic fiction. . . ." --Booklist
"Wylene Dunbar found a
wonderful central metaphor for My Life with Corpses, and then invested it
with life, passion, and an eerie resonance into the spirit of these troubled
times. It is a stunning new novel." --Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer
Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"My Life with Corpses is overwhelming: in its beauty, emotional force, and
uniqueness. While I finished the book a few weeks ago already, I have the
strange feeling that I'm still reading it -- it's that resonant." --Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is
Illuminated
"My Life with Corpses is an ode on the west wind to what the dead make of us and
we of them. It hurts, but it doesn’t hurt that it’s deadly funny." --Barry
Gifford, author of Wyoming
"Wylene Dunbar’s evocative prose, her
sense of humor and her deep wisdom make My Life with Corpses a rewarding
journey—for the heart no less than the mind." --Steve Yarbrough, author of Visible
Spirits
"This is an extraordinary work of
fiction. Oz is unforgettable: her story will stay with you long after you have
finished reading the book." --Dean Faulkner Wells, author of Ghosts of Rowan Oak
"Throughout, author Dunbar displays
a distinct talent for the eerie, as well as a stalwart dedication to her
intriguing central metaphor: Her subject is never death, but the absence of any
recognizable form of life.
--Nashville Scene
Click here for links to
online reviews.
Published by Harcourt
June 2004; $24.00US; 0151010153
My Life with
Corpses
is available at all fine
bookstores. Here are some links to help you.
Amazon.com
Booksense.com
(local booksellers)
Borders.com
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