9780156005142

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A rollicking burlesque on death, resurrection, and dinner with a brilliantly fleshed-out protagonist, one of the most memorable characters since Ignatius Reilly in THE CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES BURLEIGH BENNETT, a chaste but otherwise learned writer of newspaper obituaries, is used to capping a night's work of tending to the dead by satisfying his own deepest hungers at his favorite New York restaurant, where the obliging staff helps maintain his weight at a nice round three hundred pounds. When Burl stumbles one night into a gangland slaying, his life of moral virtue and culinary vice is turned upside down, and he embarks on a uniquely American odyssey that gives life to the adage "Imprisoned in every fat man, a thin one is wildly signaling to be let out,"
In St. Burl's Obituary, Daniel Akst serves up a four-star feast that is at once a comedy, a love story, a thriller, and a saucy allegory on the state of manhood.

"[This] novel is only tangentially a thriller. Rather, it is a map of the contemporary world, a black comedy....At its core is Burl's personal Purgatory, a feverish wrestling match with his immense appetite, a mystery in its own right because his parents are so thin and abstemious....With its delicately handled echoes of Dante, and its unblinking look at contemporary America, 'St. Burl's Obituary' is ingenious and thought-provoking....Akst tells his tale in no-nonsense, journalistic prose that keeps the story moving at a swift clip."

Charles Monaghan, Washington Post Book World, 05/26/1996

"[A]n outrageous, superb novel....The adage says that truth is stranger than fiction, but no truth is stranger than Akst's fiction....But...Akst never lets the plot get away from him. He makes the unbelievable unexpectedly believable."

Steve Weinberg, Philadelphia Inquirer, 06/30/1996

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