The Corpses' Daughter

We kill ourselves. We kill ourselves with over-thinking (Donovan's death: "after the fictional tycoon whose brain was kept alive in a vat"). We kill ourselves with over-acting (Jivaro: "after Ecuadorian tribe of headhunters who so masterfully shrunk what they caught"). And we kill ourselves with over-feeling (histrionia). But mostly we kill ourselves by simply forgetting to live.

My Life With CorpsesThis might be the premise of Wylene Dunbar's delightfully deadly My Life With Corpses (Harcourt $24). I say might because a) that's only part of the story, and b) nothing is certain.

Even death.

Dig it.

Oz is alive, but she might not yet know it. Her family is dead, but she might not yet know that either. When you're a kid you kinda take what you get for what is. Alive. Dead. That's all relative.

So the dead relatives. Mom died a full ten years before Oz was born (really), sis succumbed sometime between. And Dad, well, Dad was alive, for a spell, but he eventually fell to forgetting.

It might also be relative that Oz was raised as a boy.

Then again, it might not be.

Very relative is the fact that the dead can't know and the dead can't feel, which makes for a rather numb and uneventful, er, existence. Never mind an odd upbringing for the offspring.

One would think being reared by a bunch of unknowing, unfeeling dead people would drive a girl batty.

Not Oz.

Nothing cracks the corpses' daughter.

Flip forward a few years and Oz has a relatively remarkable level head for a dame of the dead. She split her Kansas flatland and took to Vanderbilt, then ditched Nashville for the suitably mossy Oxford (Hey, Bill!) and Ole Miss, her Philosophy doctorate an excuse to search for the ever elusive truth.

But no doctoral program can compare to Winfield Evan Stark, the agnostic iconoclast who lived down the road during Oz's childhood. 'Twas Stark who first gave Oz a look at life. And it was Stark who mentored her throughout her own living.

He's not about to stop now that he's dead.

Seems Stark's missing from his grave. Oz knows this happens all the time. That an early copy of her account with corpses is found in his place though isn't so usual. Stark's trying to tell her something, and she owes it to the dead ol' man to listen.

Oz is not finished, signs Stark. There's still more to do, more to tell, about her life with corpses. There's the truth.

This book is that telling.

The telling is that truth.

If I were to tag Dunbar's tale, I'd tag it Gothic Philosophic. But then you might get the wrong idea. Oh, it's supernatural, alright, as supernatural as living death gets, and it's cave deep in its exploration of depth. It is not however horrific and it is not in any way obtuse. This is what we see when the blindfold's pulled away. And we look.

Dunbar gives us room to look at a lot. Spare like Cather (who considered her own work "unfurnished") yet rich like O'Conner (whose work is considerably considered) with a touch of Houllebecq's Elementary eggheadedness but none of his smarm. There are parallels to Dunn (hyperreality), and Palahniuk (ditto), and a whole host of how-do-you-dos to Harry Crews (who may or may not be cited by last name). Mostly Dunbar sounds like Kansas, the myth as well as the place, which is not surprising considering that she, like Oz, is "constructed from its pieces."

If I have one beef with ...Corpses, it's that Dunbar's dead don't do much. Oh sure they resurrect, but then they lie around and watch Liberace and Lucy. And their parlor tricks are strictly ho-hum. There's no miracle. There's no magic. There's no heaven. And the living dead have it even worse. It's almost disappointing. Makes it look as if perhaps death really isn't anything to look forward to after all.

Live it up.

Note: This article was first published online in the now defunct Bully Magazine. Supplied with immense thanks to Ken Wohlrob.

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