"I stopped being funny the day my wife was electrocuted by her underwire bra."
So begins "Aftermirth," a surprising dark comedy from Hillary Jordan, the NY Times-bestselling author of MUDBOUND and WHEN SHE WOKE.
The story explores the absurdity of death through the eyes of 36-year-old comedian, writer and actor Michael Larssen. What is horribly funny to the rest of the world is devastating to Michael, who loved his wife deeply, especially her bright, abandoned laughter, which captivated him from the first time he ever heard it. In the aftermath of her death, he loses his sense of humor, along with his career.
After two years of mourning her, he sees an article in the paper about a factory worker named Julio Santiago who fell into a giant vat of dough and was kneaded to death. For reasons Michael doesn't understand, he decides to go to the man’s wake. There he meets and bonds with Julio’s twenty-nine-year-old daughter Elena, a law student who is reeling from her father’s unexpected and preposterous death.
Three months later, she calls him out of the blue and suggests that the two of them drive to North Carolina to speak with another survivor like themselves Elena has found on the Internet. Their road trip is a darkly funny journey of healing that takes them deep into the heart of their grief and others’, and then beyond it, to a place of peace and laughter.
