The beginning is like watching a fuse burn. The rest was an explosion of death and fire. Not bad.

Stewart O'Nan's A Prayer for the Dying, A Reminiscence for the LivingIt is slightly after 12:30 a.m. But I am not sleeping. I have just completed A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan. Rarely have I read a novel that I am compelled to review immediately upon completing it. But this is one.Much has gone on in my personal life since a killer tornado passed through our town, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on April 27th. Shortly afterward, my mother developed a serious case of pneumonia. Although the pneumo...

This is the kind of novel you end a little stunned. I have a friend whose literary tastes I greatly respect, a gifted writer herself, who raved about O'Nan to me--this is the first novel of his I've ever read, but won't be the last. She actually gave me her copy of this book when I mentioned I couldn't find it in stores. It was recommended in a horror recommendation list, and my friend expressed surprise it would be thought of that way.Having now read it I understand what she means. Inside a blu...

My first experience with Stewart O'Nan and not entirely sure what to expect. My knowledge of him is sparse: He grew up here in Pittsburgh and went on to write about the Red Sox with Stephen King and is often compared to Flannery O'Connor, Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson, all of which piqued my interest and helped convince me to pick up a book of his.Postbellum Friendship, Wisconsin - Jacob Hansen is the town's constable, undertaker and pastor as his town is threatened by two simultaneous dan...

It's a bleak book but it's Stewart O'Nan so 4.5 Stars.

It is short. It will grab you by the neck and pull you under. Readitreaditreadit. I want that to be my whole review but I'm a wordy bitch, so here goes:When things go bad, how do you know they don't go bad because of you and not just in spite of you (or your efforts)? And when things go bad, so bad that you aren't sure any more what goodness is or was, does that first question even matter? And if it doesn't matter, why make an effort?If questions like these make you want to steer the kayak of yo...

My God, Stewart O'Nan has to be the most underrated writer in the world. I cannot fathom how his talent is not more widely recognized. Sure, plenty of people know about him, but nowhere near the number he deserves. He's an absolute beast of a novelist, one who exhibits total control of his craft. A gifted writer, master storyteller, and brilliant imagination all rolled into one; an author who has such an uncanny ability to get under your skin, that he can actually wear you with a book like 'A Pr...

I finished this book last night, but tired as I was, could not sleep for thinking about it. There are several lifetimes packed into these 195 pages. Jacob is the sherriff, undertaker and minister to the small town of Friendship, Wisconsin. The Civil War has been over for 6 years, but his memories of the dead and dying persist. His life is a good one, with a loving wife and 6 month old daughter, the respect of his townspeople, and a sense of responsibility for their care and protection.Then a dip...

I expect to be haunted by this book. It is brilliantly written, but it is dark. I suppose a story about a town that finds itself in the grip of an epidemic couldn’t be otherwise. Stewart O’Nan wrote this story in second-person perspective. I can’t think of anything I’ve read in second-person POV, besides Choose Your Own Adventure when I was 12. (Of course, A Prayer for the Dying is not a corny kids’ adventure, and “you” are not meant to be the main character here.) I had thought this stylistic c...

Another excellent pandemic reading material.Set in a town called Friendship in Wisconsin, USA just after the Civil War, the principal protagonist, Jacob Hansen, was a former soldier who is now the town’s Sheriff (so he carries a gun and maintains peace and order), Undertaker (so he fixes the dead for burial and consoles the grieving) and Deacon (so he reads the Bible and delivers the sermons during worship days). He has a wife, Martha, and they have a baby daughter, Amelia, who is a delight to t...

This very bleak but beautifully written novel ( a novella, really).. by Stewart O'Nan takes place in the time period following the end of the Civil War in Friendship, Wisconsin. Jacob Hansen has just returned from the war and is struggling to fit back into the town that he loves. Jacob is Friendship's sheriff, undertaker and pastor; and he takes all of those roles very seriously. He is married to Marta and they have a baby girl, Amelia. The two are the anchor in Jacob's life. The story is told t...

“Where do your responsibilities stop? Sometimes you have to choose.” ~ Jacob Hansen“Jake” Hansen, a Union veteran of the United States Civil War, now serves as undertaker, constable and part-time preacher in Friendship, Wisconsin, “a dying old lead town.” The word “dying” takes on enormous significance in this small prairie outpost when a young homeless soldier is found facedown beside a campfire, dead without a scratch. A woman, ranting and frothing, is soon found lying in the stubble by the ro...

This is the novel written for pandemic reading. I'd read it years ago and kept thinking of it during this Coronavirus quarantine, so re-read it. Set in the late 1800s, the constable of a Wisconsin village, who also happens to be the local undertaker and minister, is notified of a dead man in the woods. Shortly after, it becomes clear that Diptheria killed the man and has stricken several people in the village, including the constable's family. One of the unique parts about this short novel is th...

There are times you don’t like something, but can’t really put your finger on the reason. Take Mexican food. No matter how well it is prepared, how fresh the ingredients, or how wonderful the recipe, it’s all pretty average to me. You can place before me the finest Mexican feast in all the land, and I will respond with a resounding meh. And to the consternation of my wife, who loves Mexican food, I can’t explain the reason why. The other night, I went with some friends to a popular new Mexican p...

Jacob Hansen is a civil war veteran and the sheriff, pastor and undertaker of the small town of Friendship. On an ordinary summer day people begin to fall ill, first one, then more. Jacob watches his beloved town unravel as diphtheria takes hold while a fire simultaneously bears down on Friendship. He struggles to balance his various roles in the town, as well as that of husband and father, as he faces these twin challenges. There is a very calm, subtle, matter-of-fact tone to this book which so...

This is likely my favorite novel of all time. I'm currently on my fourth time through, and it gets better every time. I've seen a lot of reviews that address the second person narrative in this text. Apparently, some find it difficult to follow. However, I did not. In fact, I found it to be one of the strengths of O'Nan's writing. It is not truly second person - rather, first person perspective using second person pronouns. (Instead of "I", he uses "you")I think this is particularly effective as...

this book is like boiling milk. at first, everything is nice and serene - a calm pool of pure silken whiteness. and then it starts to shimmer a little bit and you know things are happening, and you start to notice little bloopy bits of activity, but you don't want to stir it just yet. steam starts to rise from it, and it is almost magical, like tiny milk-ghosts. and then - bubbles! one or two at first, and then so many, too many to even play milk whack-a-mole with. and then - rolling boil! look

I think I read this years ago, but my memory is like a sieve, so it was like reading it anew.Certainly, the read was timely, given it was about an epidemic.(view spoiler)[ Everybody dies in this novel except the main protagonist, Jacob Hansen, of the story. Gosh, I thought the people who were not felled by diphtheria and got into a boxcar to take off for a safer place would live. Not to be...they died a gruesome death. If the plague didn’t get them the firestorm created by the drought would do t...

This book is mind-blowingly awesome. Written in the disconcerting second-person voice, the book finds its spiritually-conflicted preacher/sheriff/mortician facing the apocalypse of his world. Weaving together scraps of the protagonist's Civil war memories with his current situation of disease and raging fire, the book grabs the reader for a terrifying ride and does not let go, not even after the story has ended.

Stewart O’Nan’s A Prayer for the Dying may be praised by the literary community, but it’s nothing but dead pages full of dead words to me. Jacob Hansen has recently stepped out of the Civil War and into juggling several roles (that of preacher, sheriff and undertaker) in the small town of Friendship, Wisconsin. However, Friendship soon finds itself trapped in a Catch-22, where they should stay quarantined due to a diphtheria epidemic, yet should be fleeing from the great incoming fire. Jacob str...