Being Dead is a well-written, at times even engrossing, novel, but is essentially bleak. Author Jim Crace provides a literary “quivering” for Joseph and Celise, the murdered protagonists, going back in stages to fill in details of both their last day and their 30 year marraige.

The problem for me is that the author’s “secular” (from book jacket blurb) view of life and death is depressing. Maybe some find the idea that we live, we die, and that is all there is to it, comforting. I find it grim. Add to my fundamental disagreement in outlook the fact that neither Joseph nor Celise was very happy with their marraige, their daughter, or life in general, and the whole thing is a real downer.