What we read.

The Pallbearers Club

by Paul Tremblay

AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR of The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay delivers a uniquely structured and stylized novel with his newest book, The Pallbearers Club. The Pallbearers Club is an oddly refreshing blend of genres like coming-of-age and macabre fiction. Tremblay’s newest novel is presented to the reader as a memoir manuscript by Art Barbara, the novel’s main character. Tremblay expertly frames this novel in the form of Art’s manuscript and also gives the reader the ‘red penned’ markups of another character, Mercy Brown, Art’s best friend/enemy/punk goth character foil. The story ends up being about a toxic and unsettling friendship between the two.

As you read through the ‘memoir’ you find words and phrases crossed out in red, corrections made, and sometimes full pages at the end of each chapter of Mercy’s very critical commentary on Art’s recollection of events. While the novel feels very coming of age and normal at first, the middle of the book sees weird punk, army jacket-wearing character Mercy suddenly become a weird, quasivampire. Did not see that coming.

This double-frame narrative meshed with the monstrous seems to be a direct nod to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein which is also a multi-framed story beginning with one character’s written recollection. The plot begins rather slowly, following Art’s rather pathetic high school self as he struggles with regular high school things like awkwardness and college applications. When Art has the idea to start the pallbearers club in an effort to get more extracurriculars under his belt, he and a measly few students start being volunteer pallbearers at the funeral services of people who lack mourners. Enter Mercy Brown, the character who is weirdly interested and unnaturally comfortable with death. At first, she seems to be nothing more than a wannabe goth teenager, but as she and Art become close friends (bonding over alternative rock music, polaroids, and whatnot), he eventually has some odd encounters with her that border on the monstrous and macabre.

The two eventually have an unsatisfying falling out after visiting a graveyard together and Art starts to become suspicious of Mercy. Although the plot feels odd, definitely not linear, and not altogether enthralling, Tremblay’s writing style expertly switches between the voices of characters in a way that keeps the reader entertained enough to keep going. Because the fantasy element of this book is so understated at first, it makes the oddly placed vampire elements almost too realistic; ‘Wait is this for real? Or is Art just seeing things? Is the vampire stuff a metaphor?’

The ‘memoir’ picks up at a certain point when Art is an adult, not too long before the writing of his memoir, where he runs into Mercy again, and he basically has a mental breakdown. The ending might just be the best part of the book, so I’ll save that for you to read. The way Tremblay captures the unfathomable concept of death alongside the uncertain construct of reality is thought-provoking and fairly relatable to the human experience. If you want to read an extremely unique novel that successfully presents a frame narrative and blends genres, give this book a read. – Chloe Senatore