I See You’ve Called in Dead

Bud Stanley is a 44-year-old obituary writer who accidentally posts his own obituary—written in a bout of drunken self-pity—to his employer’s website. Now he’s about to lose his job but is in professional limbo because of a catch-22 (the company can’t fire him until its software recognizes that he is, in fact, alive). While he waits to be fired Bud wanders through New York City, attending funerals and wakes of strangers and having conversations with his work colleague Tuan, his best friend/landlord Tim, neighbor boy Leo, and many others, all of which makes the book sound more mawkish than it actually is. There’s enough humor to cut the earnestness, and if the jokes don’t always land, there’s also acknowledgement that Bud uses unkind sarcasm as a defense. The supporting characters (including Leo, who is coded as autistic and having OCD) each have a degree of depth that makes them more than dispensers of facile life lessons. Above all, readers get the beauty of Thurber Award winner Kenney’s (Talk to Me) writing, with descriptions of the everyday that feel like poetry.