John Kenney's I See You've Called in Dead landed at #15 in my book ranking to date, which is quite impressive given its genre is not my forte in the slightest.

I expected this to be about someone who is misreported as dead and then has to live the rest of his life as a dead person, never to surface (or be caught alive) again. I was woefully mistaken. It ended up being a palate cleanser from my typical thriller / mystery / twist reads, and to my surprise, I quite enjoyed it.

For background, Bud Standley is a middling, divorced obituary writer in New York City for a prominent paper in 2019. One night he gets a little intoxicated (who hasn't) and writes his own obituary (maybe not all of us have done that). This would have been fine had he not accidentally published said obituary – which he does, resulting in his suspension from the workplace followed by a mockery of those that see him alive over the coming weeks.

Constantly, Bud is castigated for publishing his own obituary, but then accused of not being very alive in the first place. Bud is lost.

Bud attends a funeral where he is acquainted with Clara. Through mundane conversation, it is revealed that Clara does not know the deceased; no, she actually just attends funerals in her free time. Something that makes her feel, well – alive. The two meet and the romantic chemistry is clear immediately. Clara invites Bud to a funeral – one for, of course, someone she does not know. Bud obliges. The first of many.

This continues, the two grow closer. A favorite scene of mine is when Clara invites Bud to Brighton Beach. It is not June, it is not July – it is cold. As Clara illustrates viscerally to Bud, the water is frigid. Not the cold that you get used to after a few minutes – a cold that pierces, a cold that gets worse (not better), a cold that makes you feel… dead. But Bud puts aside his lack of purpose, of drive, and gets in anyway. It's the first time in a while that he feels – alive.

Bud also comes to be quite close with Tim Charvat, his landlord who is paralyzed from the hips down. Tim has an above-market place that he rents for below-market rates and chooses Bud because there's something about him he likes, something about him he trusts. Bud feels mutually, as there are a number of scenes where Bud is talking to Tim and just feels the words flowing. Bud didn't have a lot of friends. But Tim was one.

I'm sparing the details of the relationship as I can't do it the same justice that John Kenney can. But eventually, while sipping a glass of wine, Tim suffers a medical emergency and is pronounced dead after the instance. Blood clots – common for the paralyzed due to lack of mobility. Bud spoke at his funeral. He had words prepared. But he didn't use them. He just spoke.

It's a common feeling – every time I go into an interview, or have to give a speech, or presentation, I write down the words, I make a plan of what I am going to say. But when I get there, that all goes out the window and I speak from the mind, the heart, the soul. I had to speak at church for ~30 seconds the other day to a crowd of ~400 people. I was terrified. I spent the whole week planning what I was going to say. When I got up there, autopilot took over. I invited everyone to come to the Parish Center after Mass – I referred to it as "The Promised Land" – who thought that was a good idea? I didn't think to say that, it just happened – and luckily the elderly women in the front three rows let out a bellowing chuckle. But that's what Bud was like at his best friend's eulogy. How beautiful it is to have something that you don't have to rehearse, but you can just say what you truly feel. We could all be so lucky.

This book was not a traditional read; I like to be thrilled, I like to be scared, I like to be confused, I like to be on the edge of my seat. I was none of those things.

But it did make me think. I didn't know where the book was going, but I didn't think about that. It made me think about death, about life. How will people remember us when we are gone? What lasting memory do we want to have? Why is death so scary?

It shouldn't be – it's life's only certainty. If anything, it should serve as a north-star reminder that everything we do has meaning, value, and purpose. The fact that one day we won't be here makes every salad more delicious, every vacation more extravagant, every relationship more personal.

John Kenney was awesome at making me pensive while also making me laugh. Here are a few quotes that made me think, that made me laugh, or ran a chill down my spine:

"You know what the real crime was?"
"That I wasn't actually dead?"
"It wasn't that good of an obituary."
Maybe we're all obituary writers. And our job is to write the best story we can now.
The greatest wonder is that every day, all around us, people die, but we act as if it couldn't happen to us.

Bud Stanley inspired me, throughout his fictional memoir. We are defined by such trivial things; our age, our name, the town we grew up in, our profession, the company we worked for, the university we attended. But those things aren't who we are. They are a series of facts about us, but they don't define us.

So here it is. Below. My own obituary, on my terms. Things I've done, things I hope to do, so that no random columnist in the Arlington Times has to write some half-assed summary of my life.

"Aidan McGowan, 153, failed in his quest to live forever this past week. Over his lifetime, he logged 547,500 miles traversed on foot, 6,000 books read, 10 books written, 3 movies produced, and zero Super Bowls from the New York Jets witnessed. He had over 7,000 contacts in his phone, 4 daughters that played Division 1 sports, and a key to the Vatican. He volunteered as an Emergency Medical Technician, a CCD teacher, and a caddy on the PGA Tour – though almost all circumstances would devolve into lessons on financial literacy as he was never able to shake his three years of investment banking experience. His 2040 Presidential bid failed for the same reason his 2140 campaign did – being deemed "too fit" for office. Throughout his life, Aidan found himself in several unique situations, including having to land a commercial airline due to an incapacitated pilot, performing his own open-heart surgery due to lack of trust in America's medical system, and winning the Powerball but failing to collect due to his ongoing excommunication trial in 2056 (the case was later dropped). Despite rampant inflation, McGowan's two cents actually became less valuable over time, ultimately only able to be paid for in foreign currencies. He is survived by no one, as he outlived his family and friends, and was instrumental in the demise of his enemies. Instead of flowers, McGowan has asked that everyone wear sunglasses the next time it rains."
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