Among the Dead [Hardcover]

Michael Tolkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1993

A black comedy set in modern-day L.A. traces the disastrous attempts of an unfaithful husband to make a new start with his family. By the author of The Player. 50,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author/screenwriter of The Player scores again in this drolly morbid novel, a gleefully vicious combination of satire and propulsive storytelling. The night before L.A. businessman Frank Gale is to take his wife, Anna, and daughter to Mexico, he writes a letter he plans to give Anna on their arrival, confessing an affair and asking for her understanding. Next day, he breaks up with his mistress at lunch but misses the flight. Frank calls Anna from his limo phone, promising to follow her on the next plane out. She tells him she has found the letter in his suitcase, but boards the aircraft anyway; the plane crashes, killing everyone. Among the Dead is, on one hand, the excruciatingly detailed story of the aftermath of such an airline disaster--the claiming of bodies, the legal maneuvering with the airline, the media sensationalism. On the other hand, it is the chronicle of Frank's private anguish, in an interior monologue just absurd enough to be believable. Tolkin has carefully plotted Frank's unravelling so his descent is absolute, the kind of breakdown that is impossible to look away from, where the worst you can imagine happens, and proves horrible and uproarious at the same time. Uniquely incompetent despite his sharp eye, Gale is both repugnant and compellingly human, a creation worthy of J. P. Donleavy. Author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this novel, which could be titled Worst-Case Scenario, we follow the thoughts and actions of Frank Gale, whose wife and daughter are killed in the crash of a flight he was supposed to be on as well. Gale misses the flight because he is having a final lunch with his mistress, before ending the affair. He had intended to give his marriage a fresh start on vacation. Tolkin, author of The Player ( LJ 6/15/88), which was made into a successful movie in 1992, takes us inside the mind of Gale as he tortures himself, imagining every possible sequence of events that might have happened. Sometimes the narrative's primary form of punctuation is the question mark. But despite the unpleasantness of the subject matter, this is a highly readable novel, one that is difficult to put down and that succeeds on the highest level as a dark comedy of morals. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/92.
- David Dodd, Benicia P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 273 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (April 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688120830
• ISBN-13: 978-0688120832
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,551,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is more than we deserve, April 25, 2004

By 

Erin Tigchelaar (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Among the Dead: A Novel (Paperback)

This is an easy book to admire, if a hard one to enjoy. More than any other contemporary satirist, Tolkin has the gift of implicating his readers in the sins of his nightmarish protagonists. "Among the Dead" ends with a vision that is as apt and Old Testament-flavoured as that which caps off Flannery O'Connor's short story "Revelation". The final message - "This is more than you deserve"- reveals the kind of grace that can only come from a terrifyingly clear-eyed and angry God. The novel as a whole has a very surreal quality. In a wonderful set piece on a train, we realize Frank Gale, through his grief, conceit and weakness, is somehow dreaming the world around him into existence; it's a neat technical trick that allows the author to use mood to stand in for plausible plot and character development. (Frank's interactions with the airline representatives and his brother Lowell are not always credible, but it hardly seems to matter.) The pacing is excellent and the suspense wire-taut, which makes this a quick, while still grueling, read. Weak-stomached readers should be warned: this novel has some of the most gut-churning, violent prose I've ever read.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Satire So Biting,It Draws Blood., August 7, 1998

By 

Zack Smith - See all my reviews

This review is from: Among the Dead (Paperback)

The sense of humor displayed in this book is, as Harlan Ellison puts it, "so black it's ultraviolet." One can only assume that Tolkin is a man who has suffered many a dark night of the soul; he is one of the few writers whose characters are smart enough to realize the implications of their predicaments, and actually consider the long-term consequenses of their actions. Within this framework, he manages to explore the nature of guilt, the relentlessness of the media and how the public feeds off the tragedies of others...and often makes it laugh-out-loud funny. A throughly underappreciated novel from one of our most throughly underappreciated writers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A funny and absorbing book by screenwriter Michael Tolkin., November 13, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Among the Dead (Paperback)

I think this book has never gotten its due. A classic it isn't, but it has more wit and insight than any John Grisham, in my humble opinion. A man cheats on his wife and after much soul searching, decides to confess on vacation. After going ahead, both wife and daughter die in a plane crash. The book then shifts to an assortment of different characters' reactions to this tragedy. The most interesting part of this book iS the details Tolkin goes into on airline procedure after a crash. How they kiss the buttocks of relatives so they won't sue them, and so on. It's both a sad and funny book, and best of all, memorable.