Lying With the Dead: A Novel - Couverture souple

“Dazzling, suspenseful...The novel depicts in sparse, lyrically beautiful prose the tragedy of a dysfunctional family from Maryland whose formidable matriarch summons home her three children. Each sibling recounts his or her drama in turn during a final bedside reunion... Lying with the Dead is an impressive book by a world-class writer at the height of his powers. Mr. Mewshaw serves up a rich menu of disturbing food for thought not just for Catholics but for anyone concerned with the future of the family and the prospects for the survival of Christian values in the 21st century.”—The Washington Times

"Mewshaw has delivered an impeccable eleventh novel, Lying with the Dead, which plumbs the depths of one dysfunctional Maryland family's misery...[an] unvarnished portrait of a clan whose home is blessed with neither luck nor love."—Texas Monthly

“Even a clergyman would be hard pressed to find a forgiving word for the widow at the center of this flinty black comedy. A pill-popping, racist termagant whose sundry abuses have driven her two sons thousands of miles from their Maryland hometown, she stews in a fetid dwelling that has “that zombie stillness of a ‘silent neighbor,’ one of those pretend houses where the power company stores its meters and equipment.” Only her daughter, a 55-year-old polio survivor, lives close enough to regularly indulge Mom’s bile and guilt. In a sudden fit of fence-mending, this daughter is summoned for a visit along with her brothers: an ex-jailbird who is beset with that popular malady of the moment, Asperger’s syndrome, and a high-rolling actor whose renovated-abattoir home in London serves as a fantasy reproach to his tortured childhood. The three siblings trade off as narrators, with variable results: the actor emerges as a pull-string marionette of theatrical references, while his sister’s recollections of a children’s polio clinic cut like a knife. Mewshaw’s interlacing of viewpoints freshens this over-worked family-reunion terrain...”—The New York Times Book Review
 
"Mewshaw channels Aeschylus by way of Jerry Springer in this tale of three grown children reluctantly reunited to deal with the age-old question, 'What to do about Mom?'... Told through the viewpoints of each sibling, Mewshaw limns a macabre and mordantly satisfying satire of dysfunctional families."—Booklist

"Mewshaw tackles a dysfunctional Irish-American family in an emotional novel narrated by the three adult children: 60-year-old Candy, who reluctantly cares for their manipulative and gravely ill mother; the Asperger's-afflicted former convict, Maury, who went to jail at 13 for killing their father; and the successful, London-based actor Quinn. As they are called to mom's bedside, the nonlinear story travels back to the origins of this 'radioactive' family, dredging up dark secrets....The three jaded yet sympathetic voices of the siblings are darkly expressive, supplying unnerving comic moments and unexpected twists. Mewshaw waxes poetic throughout while keeping the story moving forward to its shocking conclusion."—Publishers Weekly

My neighbors, no kidding, buy tiger shit from the London Zoo and spread it over their flowerbeds. They believe its wild scent scares off animals. But I allow creatures large and small free rein of my property. Squirrels, hedgehogs, voles, and field mice (they mutate into rats and become fair game for traps if they sneak into the house) frolic for my amusement. On clear winter mornings like this one, a tawny fox, regal as a lion on the Serengeti, sometimes stretches out in the deep grass, soaking up the feeble warmth of the sun.

Today, however, I have no time to admire the view or search for the fox. I'm booked for lunch with my agent and a BBC producer. Already late, I nevertheless stroll to the restaurant by a circuitous route, reveling in cold air that rings like crystal. On certain streets, the walls of cottages huddle close, none more than a hand span apart. Each door is a different color–lipstick red, royal green, Della Robbia blue. At Admiral's Walk, in front of the white wooden mansion where Mary Poppins was filmed, a brigade of tourists gape as if expecting to spot Julie Andrews sailing overhead, pulled along by her umbrella.

At Whitestone Pond, the highest point in London, the water is usually like a detergent filled bucket stirred by a grimy mop. Today it glitters with jeweled ice. Convinced I've kept Mal and the man from the Beeb waiting long enough, I turn down Heath Street. The ethnicity of the restaurants along the road switches every month. Indian, Hungarian, Moroccan, Thai, Argentinean–maybe these joints just trade signs and go on serving the same grub. Only La Gaffe never changes. Despite the French name, it has an Italian menu and attracts a clientele divided evenly between those who look like Peter O'Toole and those who crane their necks looking for him.