Customer Reviews

The Brooklyn Book of the Dead

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the romeoville critic who doesn't like difficult lives posted his/her dim review twice, thus pulling down the average ranking of this book. so, to keep things fair, i will post my opinion twice. michael stephens is a brave writer. he investigates complicated, sad, unrelentingly torturous relationships, and he doesn't give himself any easy ways out. he didn't have to do this, but he did, so we might as well learn from what he's investigated. to complain about his material is to leave unrecognized the accomplishment, and the gift, of charting this rough terrain for us. and his imagination kept me absorbed throughout.

Lyrical, poetic, raucous and for real is this Irish American novel whose Coole family chronicles the rise and fall of a family into Brooklyn being. Stephens is a poet, sentence to sentence, and painfully honest in a way most writers would fear to be. Questing out of the dregs for a mythos too, splendid indeed and his works will outlast the pulp fiction of our time from Joy Luck Clubs to the Joan Didion suburban pathos.

the romeoville critic who doesn't like difficult lives posted his/her dim review twice, thus pulling down the average ranking of this book. so, to keep things fair, i will post my opinion twice. michael stephens is a brave writer. he investigates complicated, sad, unrelentingly torturous relationships, and he doesn't give himself any easy ways out. he didn't have to do this, but he did, so we might as well learn from what he's investigated. to complain about his material is to leave unrecognized the accomplishment, and the gift, of charting this rough terrain for us. and his imagination kept me absorbed throughout.

This is "the great Irish-American novel." While "The Great Gatsby" is a brilliant novel about America from an Irish-Catholic point of view and "A Confederacy of Dunces" has the most memorable Irish-American character in Ignatius Reilly, this book gets inside the soul of Irish-America and unmasks all its neuroses, obsessions and dreams. Stunning!

Michael Steven's Brooklyn Book of the Dead is indeed a book of the dead, about the dead, and for the dead. This is the story of the most dysfuncional of families, and there is nothing comic about it. It is Inspector Leleand Coole's funeral, and his sixteen children grudgingly come together, for the first time in years, to attend his funeral. Stevens drags his readers through each of their flashbacks, revealing the Coole family's aggression toward each other and the world. While the Cooles are Irish-American, this novel is not so much concerned with their experiences as members of an immigrant group as with their experiences growing up in Brooklyn- a major influence on each of their sense of personal identity. The biggest drawback to this book is the repetition. After a while, all the flashbacks start to look the same: neglected children hurting themselves, siblings trying to kill or molest each other, crazy aunts running around getting drunk. Likewise, all the characters are the same. Stevens never forgets to remind his readers that they all smoke unfiltered cigarettes, get high, drink until their livers are daisy yellow, curse like sailors, fight and hold grudges. They are all angry, belligerent, and cursed; and so there really are not sixteen characters in this book, only one with sixteen different names.

Michael Stevens' "The Brooklyn Book of the Dead" is indeed of the dead, about the dead, and for the dead. This is the story of the most dysfunctional of families, and there is nothing comical about it. It is Inspector Leleand Coole's funeral, and his sixteen children grudgingly come together, for the first time in years, to attend his funeral. Stevens drags his readers through each of their flashbacks, revealing the Coole family's aggression toward each other and the world. Inspector Coole was a perpetual drunk, an abusive and neglectful father. Apparently, he was also one of the most important influences in his children's lives, and continues as such even after his death. His legacy of abuse is manifested in their own addictions, failed relationships, and otherwise sad lives. The second most important influence in their lives is growing up in East New York. While the Cooles are Irish-American, this novel is not so much concerned with their experiences as members of an ethnic group as with their experiences growing up in Brooklyn- a major influence on their personal identities. Although the lives depicted in this book are depressing, the biggest drawback to reading it is the constant repetition. Eventually, all the flashbacks start to look the same: neglected children hurting themselves, siblings trying to kill or molest each other, crazy aunts running around getting drunk. Likewise, all the characters are the same. As Stevens never forgets to remind his readers, they all smoke unfiltered cigarettes, get high, drink until their livers are daisy yellow, curse like sailors, fight and hold grundges until death. They are all angry, belligerent, and cursed; and so there really are not sixteen characters in this book, only one with sixteen different names.