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BURIAL OF THE DEAD opens with a long letter from elderly Emma Kost O'Neal to her grand-niece, Manny Whitman, informing her that she is planning to change her will so that Manny will inherit her estate. As it turns out, Emma dies the day before she is supposed to meet with the lawyer to change the will. Could it be that her death was due to natural causes, and the timing was just coincidental? Or are there more sinister forces at work here? Until Emma's cause of death can be established, her estate remains in limbo. There are really three possible verdicts: death by suicide, murder, or natural causes. Depending on which is true, various people will profit from her demise. It's possible that the funds will end up in a conservator's trust which is administered by her long-time lawyer; Manny could inherit everything; or perhaps the mortician, Bobby Sullivan, or Billy the Driver will take it all. All of the characters in the book are presented in the worst possible light as they set out to prove that they are the true heir. The light of suspicion first firmly shines on Bobby Sullivan. However, Manny's lover, Matthew Wyman, is accused of murder and sent to a mental institution after a bizarre meeting with his brother. The book has an interesting organizational structure. There are various chapters dedicated to individual characters who narrate events from their point of view, interspersed with interviews and legal depositions. The end result is that there is no possible way to determine what really happened until the denouement reveals all. The book is full of unreliable and manipulative narrators; often a character will tell the same story differently when spoken to a second time. Hogan is a very lyrical writer, but at times that didn't work for the book. I often read passages that just left me befuddled. For example: Levon says the aw-shucks-cowboy-thanks, acting and then unable to act as the cowboy's shy unease overlaps some discomfort resident within, so that as two tones of synchronous waves resonate and shiver with simultaneity, he momentarily dissembles downward, a man falling through trees, reaching out, grabbing air until he finds the lost rebel's inarticulate mumble. BURIAL OF THE DEAD reminds me of one of those mathematical problems where you have to determine how many possibilities exist given X number of factors. In this case, we are dealing with 3 possible death explanations, 7 suspects with 6 different motives. And I do believe that the author explored every possible combination of those elements. The end result was a convoluted narrative that should have been a much shorter tale.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, March 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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