Unbury Carol

AT THE FUNERAL OF JOHN BOWIE

Harrows, situated at the northernmost point of the Trail, savored its distance from the meat of the rabid road. It was easily the most affluent town in both counties; the homes of Harrows were larger, often constructed of stately stone, some with as many as ten bedrooms. The garden yards were as wide as the fabled Trail itself, some roofs as high as the willows. Even better: Harrows enjoyed more sunlight than the other towns, as the shadows cast by the arching of those willows concluded where the wheat fields began, just south of the border. Sunny and secluded, remote and rich, Harrows was a very desirable place to live.

But that didn t preclude its citizens from dying.

John Bowie found this out the bad way.

One of a kind, Carol Evers said, standing beside her husband, Dwight, looking into the open grave of her friend John Bowie. The tears in her eyes reflected the unboxed man below.

One of Harrows s most likable men, Bowie was a very funny thinking-­man who added to every affair he attended. His lively eyes often smiled behind his thick glasses, and his ceaseless appetite was welcomed by all who had spent an afternoon cooking for a party.

John Bowie was a good man.

John Bowie was a fun man.

John Bowie was also a homosexual who posed no threat to Dwight Evers, Bowie being the closest friend Carol had.

For this, Bowie was the only person outside her husband whom Carol had told of her lifelong condition.

It wasn t an easy thing for her to reveal.

And yet it had come out of her, so easily, one clear evening on the back porch of her and Dwight s home. John had been discussing books and magic tricks, two of his most profound interests, when Carol suddenly rose from the bench and told him.

I ve died before, John. Many times.

Though famous for a healthy sense of humor, John wasn t one to take such a statement lightly. And Carol s green eyes often betrayed when she was serious.

Tell me, he d said, his

Josh Malerman is a New York Times bestselling author and one of two singers/songwriters for the rock band The High Strung. His debut novel, Bird Box, is the inspiration for the hit Netflix film of the same name. His other novels include Unbury Carol and Inspection. Malerman lives in Michigan with his fiancée, the artist/musician Allison Laakko.

  This one haunts you for reasons you can t quite put your finger on. . . . Malerman is too fierce an original to allow anyone else s visions to intrude on his. [He] defies categories and comparisons with other writers. Kirkus Reviews

Fantastically clever. A breakneck ride to save a life already lost, proving sometimes death is only the beginning. J. D. Barker, internationally bestselling author of The Fourth Monkey

Breathtaking and menacing . . . an intricately plotted, lyrical page-turner about love, betrayal, revenge, and the primal fear of being buried alive. Booklist (starred review)
 
Unbury Carol is a Poe story set in the weird West we all carry inside us, and it not only hits the ground running, it digs into that ground, too. About six wonderful feet. Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels
 
Bleakly lyrical à la Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O Connor. Library Journal (starred review)
 
With vivid prose and characters that leap off the page, guns a-blazing, Unbury Carol creates its own lingering legend, dragging you along like an obstinate horse toward a righteous storm of an ending. Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Phasma