This one actually is not embarrassing to be seen with, but neither is it especially a book to be proud of. I picked up this book based on the fact that it was written by the author of The Last Unicorn which was one of my favorites during my pre-teen years.
I especially like the tie-in with Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress" which was another fave from my teen years. This book is partially a love story between two ghosts, thus disproving that "...none do there (in the grave) embrace.." Good times.
Jonathan Rebeck has been living in a mausoleum in a New York cemetery for 20 years. He spends his days being fed by a raven and playing chess with the dead. The story opens at the burial of Michael who believes that he was poisoned by his wife. Michael meets Mr. Rebeck, discovers that there is an afterlife and that it is very boring, and decides to fight to retain his individuality. Mr. Rebeck, as he does with all ghosts, spends time talking to Michael and explaining the nature of the afterlife. Enter Laura, who was hit by a truck while crossing the street. Laura never had much of a life at all and never knew love or happiness.
Slowly, Laura and Michael fall in love while Mr. Rebeck begins spending time with a Yiddish-speaking, Bronx widow who comes to the cemetery to visit her husband's "house". Laura and Michael have just recognized their feelings for each other when in the course of the murder trial of Michael's wife, the fact comes out that Michael actually killed himself and deliberately implicated his wife in his death. At first, this tears the lovers apart, but their love - unlike live love - is based on reality and on clearly recognizing the truth of who each other really is. Laura still loves Michael. Unfortunately, proven a suicide, Michael must be removed from consecrated ground to another cemetery. During the disinterment of Michael's grave, Laura begs Mr. Rebeck to help them. Mr. Rebeck argues that there is nothing that he can do. He has not left the cemetery in 20 years and is acutely phobic about the thought of venturing out past the gates of his safe little world.
During the course of an internal monologue, Mr. Rebeck faces his self-justifications and doubts and accepts that the time has come to rejoin the living. He arranges with the Cuban night guard, who also sees ghosts, to disinter Laura's coffin and rebury her in the same cemetery as Michael, so that the two lovers may spend eternity together. This internal struggle is the climax of the novel and the actual implementation of the plan is anticlimactic, resulting in the decision of Mr. Rebeck to go back to retrain as a pharmacist and to live in senior-love with Mrs. Klapper.
There were whole sections of this book that were dry as dust and even more boring. However, just as I was about to give up on the story, I would reach a section filled with insight and metaphor and an ultra-simplistic trick of expressing highly complex concepts. This will never be one of my favorite books, but it was not a waste of time to read. Oddly, this is one of George RR Martin's faves. I don't really see that it was an influence on The Game of Thrones, but who knows? I would cautiously recommend this book.
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