Harare Review of Books

216 pages.

First published Sept 28, 2023 (Roseway Publishing)

Fiction.

This little story somehow wormed its way into my heart, after a less than auspicious start. The protagonist is a really very obnoxious ninety-year-old man at the beginning of the novel, who happens to die and then mysteriously will himself back to life. Right after that, though, as if that isn’t enough, he meets Death, who he finds sitting in his kitchen. The story takes increasingly absurd and amusing turns from there, and some of its more colourful characters include a kind pharmacist, a one hundred-year-old woman in a nursing home, the new doctor in town who has secrets and mysteries of his own, a hermit/recluse on a nearby island, a conscientious Mountie, and a precocious ten-year-old and her naturopath mother.

It’s the unexpected turns that turned this story into a real experience for me; I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. The curmudgeonly protagonist turns out, as you might expect, to not be as awful as he seems at the start of the book, and it was a relief for me when I started to feel affection for him. As for his adventures—I’m adding Cape Breton to my bucket list, just to see this colourful place.

In all, a delight. Thank you to NetGalley and to Roseway Publishing for access.