Dead Man's Float

by Nicholas Maes

Seventy-year-old Nathan Gelder's recent stroke has done little to appease the obsessive dreams and memories of his parents—both of whom died in the Holocaust—that haunt him relentlessly. While he remains in a paralyzed state, questions of his involvement in the death of rock star Leonard Skye Barvis begin to surface. Riots are staged worldwide and the media descends on him and his family. This effortless juxtapositon of one of history's darkest episodes with late 20th-century popular culture comes to a poignant end—with shattering results—in this haunting novel.

388 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

When younger, I thought I was going to be 1) an archeologist 2) a zookeeper, 3) an alchemist and 4) a time traveller. I wound up delivering on all these ambitions (sort of). While I never dug up any ancient cities, I did study Greek and Latin. And while alchemy has always eluded me, I did become a high-school teacher, a job that involves daily transformations. No zoo ever wanted to hire me, but I have three children and a wife: to judge by the noise level in our house, you would swear I lived in a zoo at times (one without cages of course). Finally, I haven't yet managed the trick of time travel but at least I get to write about it.

My idea of a life well spent (excluding work and being useful): hiking with my family; long conversations over endless cups of coffee (some table pounding is permitted); an endless countr.y road and a bike; books and a comfortable armchair; and writing, writing, writing.

And there you have it, Me in a nutshell

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd like to be able to give this a 2.5 star rating.

I really enjoyed the first third of this book - liked the characters and the concept. But partway through it started to fall apart for me. I could no longer understand what was motivating Nathan or making him so obsessed. By the end I was almost ready to give up - the world becoming so sympathetic to a weird rock star and the ensuing chaos - markets collapsing! riots world-wide! - was totally bizarre.