Death of an Ordinary Man

A dead man pursues the secrets of his life and death in this “dense, subtle, substantive, perfectly shaped fiction” by the author of I, Lucifer (The Guardian, UK).

Nathan Clark’s gravestone reads: At rest. But Nathan is not at rest, and knows he won’t be until he finds out why he died. How has he come to hover over his own funeral, a spectral spectator to the grief of his family and friends? Privy now to their innermost thoughts and feelings, Nathan spends the day of his wake getting to know the living as he has never known them before. But why isn’t Nathan’s young daughter Lois at the wake? Who are the two strangers at the funeral, and why does their presence fill him with dread?

Nathan knows he has only so long to unlock these mysteries, because he is drawn time and again to a room in his house he never knew existed–a room that holds a terrifying secret.

“Duncan's exhilarating, almost exhausting flood of insight into family patterns of love and habit is matched by the rich unexpectedness of his writing and the complex construction of the narrative.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review