“In a cluttered rent-controlled apartment in the middle of Manhattan, Barbara Rosenberg is terminally ill, high on opioids, and writing the story of her life.” This is the setting of Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn. We are Underlings by Doretta Lau is “set at the only theme park devoted to death, dying, and the afterlife.” And in The Comedian’s Book of the Dead by Gary Barwin, “Death is a comedian and devoted family man, but everything falls apart when the Fates choose him to guide departed souls to the Beneath.”
Through both levity and acknowledgement, each of these authors explores the absurdity of death in their work, and brings us to life along the way! As Annie Dillard famously said in The Writing Life: “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case.”
Moderated by Vinh Nguyen.
