The Dead I Know

Starred review from January 19, 2015
Australian author Gardner delves powerfully into the psychology of loss and the complexities of memory. Aaron Rowe has attended five schools in five years when his school counselor suggests that he take a job with funeral director John Barton. John leads Aaron through all of the aspects of the mortuary business, from attending funerals to assembling coffins and preparing the corpses, which is often shockingly gory. While Aaron excels in his work and finds comfort in providing a person with “a final grace,” at his trailer-park home he’s dealing with his unpredictable Mam: “Sometimes she was lucid and practical; other times she was a stormy two-year-old.” On top of everything, Aaron has recurring nightmares and sleepwalks, which puts him in increasingly dangerous situations. Gardner’s rich novel combines flashes of dark humor, an elusive narrator, and a carefully rendered supporting cast to create profound moments that will linger in readers’ minds. “What is life without a memory? Is it death?” Aaron wonders, as he makes peace with his past and finds a place in the future. Ages 14–up.

March 1, 2015
Not many people choose to surround themselves with death; Aaron Rowe does just that when he steps inside JKB Funerals for his first job. Proprietor Mr. Barton begins Aaron's grooming from the outside, with a haircut and new black suit, but Aaron's tenure with the Barton family proves more meaningfully transformative. A young man of few words, Aaron takes to his work readily, assembling the coffins and washing the hearse. "There was a peaceful rhythm to the cleaning and polishing," he observes, which helps him temporarily escape the disturbing events at home. Back at the caravan park, Mam's forgetfulness is growing worse, and some nasty neighbors seem to be watching them threateningly. Most frightening are Aaron's sleepwalking, which takes him farther from home each night, and his horrifying nightmares, revealed in bits and pieces as truths from his past. After Mam is hospitalized, he is finally able to accept desperately needed help from the Bartons, who reach out to him through their own pain and loss. Moments of warmth and humor lighten the psychological suspense and frank depiction of death in Gardner's engrossing novel. lauren adams

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

March 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 Aaron had never shaken someone's hand before until he meets his boss at JKB Funerals. That's the first indication that Aaron's past has been hard, but the rest of the details emerge slowly about his life in the RV park with his unstable mother. Aaron shows an affinity for funeral work and quickly feels at home in the director's family, but he struggles to trust enough to ask for help. Hints of his past are revealed gradually through a recurring nightmare that sends him sleepwalking through his coastal Australian town, putting him in danger that he cannot remember the next day. He begins to confront his inner demons through the probing questions of Skye, the funeral director's precocious daughter, and though the technique occasionally feels forced, it does move the story forward. Gardner's descriptions of funeral work compellingly mix dark humor and a respectful tone. Aaron's mother's health, his dark past, and the question of whether he can embrace his new life combine in an engaging through line that will engross readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Aaron has trouble connecting with people. He suffers from recurring nightmares-horrific memories of a dead woman-that have been locked away, and most nights he sleepwalks away from his home and into a caravan park where the majority of residents are drug addicts. When the teen gets a funeral director apprenticeship with Mr. Barton, it is not the dead bodies that make him nervous, but Mr. Barton's family and the grieving mourners instead. As his dreams become more intense and his Mam's undiagnosed dementia becomes increasingly dangerous, Aaron must learn how to rely on the living if he wants to save his grandmother and himself. First published in Australia, this is a dark, psychological coming-of-age drama with memorable characters and believable dialogue. Gardner continuously keeps readers emotionally invested in the protagonist. Despite the heavy topics explored in the novel, including Aaron's realization that his recurring dreams are actually repressed memories of a horrible event, and Aaron being the sole caretaker of his sick grandmother, Gardner writes with sensitivity and in a way that is accessible to teens. With humorous interactions and their unwavering belief that Aaron is worthwhile, Mr. Barton and his daughter, Skye, help him appreciate life in the midst of death and tragedy. A darkly funny book with a male coming-of-age story similar in theme and tone to My Life and Death (Peachtree, 2002) by Susan O'Keefe.-Marissa Lieberman, East Orange Public Library, NJ

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2015
A taciturn teen finds solace as a funeral director-in-training.Aaron Rowe speaks few words aloud and initially reveals little to readers about his life or what haunts him. Instead, they are taken with him under the wing of John Barton, one of two funeral directors in a small Australian town. "We don't want to bring them back to life," Barton says of the bodies Aaron helps him prepare for funerals; "we only want to give them dignity." This sentiment holds true throughout. Scenes of encountering, moving and dressing dead bodies are quietly and carefully observed, and the physical realities of death-smells, bodily effluvia, decay-are described frankly but respectfully. Meanwhile, Aaron dreams about death and sleepwalks, waking up sometimes miles from home, and Mam, the woman he lives with in a caravan park, becomes less and less lucid while awake. Aaron's and Mam's disorientation provides a chaotic counterpoint to the somber but orderly world of JKB Funerals. Skye, the Bartons' precocious and blunt daughter, adds both warmth and levity. Each plotline is woven skillfully in among the others, and each is resolved with gravity, dignity and care. The sense of family-both found and lost-is palpable throughout. Simply told and powerfully moving. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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