I Am Death: Two Novellas [Paperback]

Gary Amdahl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2008

In “I Am Death: Bartleby the Mobster,” muckraking journalist Jack finds himself increasingly over the edge when he agrees to ghostwrite the autobiography of a Chicago mob boss. In “Peasants,” publishing employee Walter Rasmussen discovers he’s the victim of sabotage by his coworkers — or is he? As in his stunning debut, Visigoth, Gary Amdahl here isolates his characters in crisis and flux, drawing out their deepest fears. With its vivid wordplay and blend of black humor and pathos, I Am Death demonstrates that Amdahl is a most adept and honest guide into the modern psyche of the American male.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Amdahl, last seen in Visigoth (2006), presents two provocative novellas. In the first, Jack, a muckraking journalist, faces an abysmal dilemma: accept a gig ghostwriting the memoirs of mobster Frank Fini or keep writing features on the Cook County morgue and advertising supplements for the Schaumburg Chamber of Commerce. As the result of equal parts coercion and curiosity, Jack agrees to the Fini assignment, and his ensuing encounters with the mobster and his off-kilter lawyer bring him closer to death—and in many ways closer to life—than he ever could have foreseen. In Peasants, Walter, once a star on the rise at a geographic information company, plunges into mediocrity at the hands of the alternately convivial and passive-aggressive new boss. His personal life follows suit, leaving him drowning in the wake of a failed marriage, a melodramatic and loveless affair, and a debilitating, dubious illness. In lyric and darkly comic prose, Amdahl daringly and distinctively explores the tragicomedy of death, not merely of the body but also of the soul and spirit. --Heather Dewar

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions (May 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571310711
• ISBN-13: 978-1571310712
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,253,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars I Am Death, December 6, 2008

By 

M. Bell (Ann Arbor, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Am Death: Two Novellas (Paperback)

Gary Amdahl's I Am Death collects two novellas, the crime story "I Am Death, or Bartleby the Monster (A Story of Chicago)" and "Peasants," a tale of hostile office politics. The two novellas are strikingly different in setting and tone, allowing Amdahl to display a range of abilities as both a writer and a storyteller.

"I Am Death" is reluctantly narrated by Jack, a Chicago journalist, who declares at the onset: "this is a story I am compelled to report. I don't want to, I'm tired of banging my head against the wall, no one I know is the least bit interested in cause anymore, effect is everything." It is a statement that at first seems at odds with the story he relates, which begins when Jack is contacted by George Swanson, lawyer for the brutal mobster Frank Fini. The men commission Jack to write Fini's biography, but Jack soon finds that Fini's presence is as catatonic and reserved as the Melville character that lends his name to the novella's title, the mobster preferring that Swanson speak for him on every topic.

Jack and Swanson are both sharply self-absorbed, an attribute that is a source of both introspection and delusion. Both are given to grand pronouncements and grander aspirations: Jack writes notes to himself ripe with self-predicating sentiments such as "am going to pieces in a calm and methodical way" while simultaneously convincing himself that this is the story that will finally take his career to the next level. Swanson too prefers speeches to open dialogue. He makes a variety of overreaching statements, such as when he compares his life in organized Chicago crime to Al Jolson's days as a blackface singer, saying,

"Guy spends his whole life being someone else--but those were different times. My point is, if you can't be who you are, you be whoever you can be, whoever your audience will let you be. They couldn't be Jews so they put on blackface. See, this is George Swanson in mob face."

The tension between Jack and Swanson is offset and reflected by Jack's relationship with Henrique Friend, a driver for the city morgue and the subject of the newspaper article that originally brought Jack to Swanson's attention. It is Henrique's job to drive the van that picks up the city's deceased and transports them to the morgue. Depressed with his work, he tries to kill himself only months before being interviewed by Jack, explaining that dealing with the dead makes him feel helpless: "like I'm late, I missed it, there's nothing you can do. You figure out how to be here and you get used to it." This last sentence is close to the heart of this novella, a single phrase that provides one way to judge these characters. On one side are those who have become part of this world, who have compromised themselves in order to be successful. On the other side are those who have not or cannot, and who will therefore be destroyed by their inability to live with the nature of their lives.

In "Peasants," protagonist Walter Rasmussen is an up-and-coming employee at a publisher of guidebooks for the users of geographic information systems. His job is to come up with projects that can be made into books, on subjects such as "[linking] certain business opportunities in outer space and sustainable development practices on the ground." As his own upward trajectory begins to level off, Rasmussen experiences a variety of professional and personal failures. Seemingly sabotaged by his boss, his co-workers, and his soon-to-be ex-wife, Rasmussen leaves behind the jovial camaraderie of his workplace for schemes to advance himself amid the crumbling ruins of his department until "a long and confusing dark age [falls] over not just the team and the company, but, at least from Rasmussen's perspective, the entire world, as well as the whole of his life, past, present, and future."

Rasmussen's fall from grace begins slowly, and it takes him a long time to hit bottom. Eventually, he finds himself involved in a series of necessary, and perhaps life-saving, separations and severances, without which he would be forever trapped in the petty orbits of his fellow office workers.

If "Peasants" seems to be merely good, it is perhaps only because it is placed side by side with "I Am Death," a truly masterful novella. I Am Death is a fine book and an excellent introduction to Amdahl's work for anyone who missed his stunning debut in 2006's Visigoth. At his best, he combines a deep thoughtfulness with compellingly athletic prose, creating a collection with both beauty and brawn to spare. Luckily, his best is a frequently occurring phenomenon, and we can only hope that there is more still to come.