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I See You've Called in Dead: A Novel | John Kenney

2 posts | 5 read | 3 to read

The Office meets Six Feet Under meets About a Boy in this coming-of-middle-age tale about having a second chance to write your life�s story. Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a �far more interesting� man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company�s system has him listed as dead. And the company can�t fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living. As Bud awaits his fate at work, his life hangs in the balance. Given another shot by his boss and encouraged by his best friend, Tim, a worldly and wise former art dealer, Bud starts to attend the wakes and funerals of strangers to learn how to live. Thurber Prize-winner and NYTimes bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.

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thegirlwiththelibrarybag

I See You've Called in Dead: A Novel | John Kenney

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I saved the last hour of the audiobook for my walk home and end up crying so hard that I had to stop walking until I could blink all the tears clear. So - 5 stars, no notes!

Tbh, I wasn‘t sure about Bud in the beginning, if he was a character I wanted to spend time with - but then he hit submit on his own obituary and well, I was hooked.

I keep stumbling into books that explore grief in its many manifestations ⬇️

thegirlwiththelibrarybag and I really appreciated the journey that this book took me on -not just Bud‘s but everyone whose life overlapped with his - most notably his landlord/best friend Tim. 2w

47 likes1 stack add1 comment

Mattsbookaday

I See You've Called in Dead: A Novel | John Kenney

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I See You‘ve Called in Dead, by John Kenney (2025)

Premise: After a drunkenly posting his own mock death notice, a New York obituary writer looks for the meaning of life and death.

Review: This is a fun, moving, and insightful book. I particularly appreciated how it held certain truths out for us without laying it on too thick; death is after all a mystery that‘s really impossible to write about well. It‘s also a really great New York book. Cont

Mattsbookaday My one complaint is that there was a bit of a mismatch between the timeframe (set in 2019) and the generations described, but this was only a bit jarring. Come for the Gen X slacker humour; stay for the warmth and insight.

Bookish Pair: This reminded me a bit of The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer (2023)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4w

5 likes1 comment