Being Dead by Jim Crace

(Posted for Ann Roberts)

More wonderful writing from Jim Crace. In the sand dunes of Baritone Bay, the middle-aged Celice and Joseph, returning to the seacoast where they met as students of zoology, lie half-naked, undiscovered and rotting for a week, prey to sand crabs, flies, and gulls. But as Crace so beautifully writes: 

"Their bodies had expired, but anyone could tell—just look at them—that Joseph and Celice were still devoted. For while his hand was touching her, curved round her shin, the couple seemed to have achieved that peace the world denies, a period of grace, defying even murder. Anyone who found them there, so wickedly disfigured, would nevertheless be bound to see that something of their love had survived the death of cells. The corpses were surrendered to the weather and the earth, but they were still a man and wife, quietly resting; flesh on flesh; dead, but not departed yet."

The story line moves back in forth in time, between their courtship and their final journey to the place where they fell in love. As the narrative moves backward, we see Celice and Joseph as young lovers, as parents, as academics, and finally as they make the small decisions about their day that will lead them towards their own deaths. It is six days before their bodies are found. Crace describes in detail their gradual return to the land that they loved with the help of crabs, birds, and insects.

Hardback, 210 pages