At first, readers will cheer Frances’s obstinacy, expressed through martyr-like outburst of rebellions: “Mandatory? Says who? Who’s running this place, anyway?” Eventually, though, the sheer number of days that transpire, with “Constant Comment” (the voice in her head) and her other emotional deficiencies cropping up like a game of Whack-a-Mole, can drag the story’s momentum. But when Schmidt eventually reveals all her surprises, the novel coalesces. Rich in ideas, How to be Dead explores reincarnation and how history shapes our lives, right up to its last letter: characters from suffragettes to a Victorian life-coach breathe life into the afterlife as the Committee, a group of Frances’s previous incarnations concerned with saving “their collective life.”
These inventive, often feminist figures speak in quick-witted, soaring prose that give power to the themes and context to Frances’s outbursts. Bantering dialogue is a consistent pleasure throughout the book, and the climax, when it comes, is clever: just when readers will be sure that Frances has failed, the novel turns. From there, we learn the story of Mac (the romance), and witness a breakthrough that will ring bells of recognition—and likely trigger tears.
Takeaway: A fiery fictional take on life and death sure to engage anyone who wants to rediscover that “life is a gift.”
Great for fans of: Camille Pagán’s Forever is the Worst Long Time, Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing.
Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
