Death with Interruptions

I stumbled across this book, written by a Nobel prize winner I had never heard of, when I was researching “comps” for my new novel. Both turn on the premise that suddenly death ceases to happen to people after a certain point in time; in Saramago’s novel, this is because Death is a female deity who gets really tired of her job.

It’s utterly fanciful but scathingly satirical in portraying humankind’s reactions to what they always thought would be a boon but soon realize is a catastrophe. It made me change some aspects of my book to try to emulate… show more.

This case has a spoiler, but a famous one: we wait halfway through the book before we’re suddenly hanging out with Death herself. For the first half, there is an epidemic of life. As the new year rings in, suddenly, nobody can die, no matter what happens to them.

Celebrations slowly turn into existential dread and bafflement that sweep the globe, and the whole novel could have been like that. But in Saramago’s novel, we pivot to meeting Death and learning why she’s unwilling to go to work today and what things are preoccupying her more than upholding the natural… show more.

I’ve saved my “riskiest” pick for last—you might not like this one, or at least you might be wondering for two-thirds of the book what the heck is going on, other than that you are reading about a country in which no one dies. The book starts by earnestly (and sometimes humorously) asking and answering questions: what do you do with so many living people? What do you do with people who are say, gravely wounded in an accident but can’t die and also can’t recover? What are not just the logistical but emotional challenges of no one departing? Would… show more.