The Brief History of the Dead – A Book Review

This could be great. I realise “could be” is a phrase loaded with doom in Hollywood; that every movie could be great, if only it had the right director, the right star, the right luck. But here is a great novel that paints a world as you read it. It is beautifully written, and at the same time (this is rare) it’s filled with moments that would work equally well on film. The Brief History of the Dead is – it’s true – not easy to categorise; it wouldn’t fit neatly into any one genre, but with its viral Apocalypse, its city of lost souls and its Antarctic survival story, it reads like everything What Dreams May Come could have been, if it hadn’t stalled in heaven… if it had grasped life.