Bud Staley is a 44 year old living in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood who writes obituaries for a major New York newspaper.  His life has taken a serious turn for the worse with his wife first losing a much anticipated pregnancy and then having an affair with an old beau and leaving Bud.  Depressed by losing Jen, his work begins to show signs of disinterest,  his apartment has been depressingly emptied by his ex, and his latest blind date shows up with her old boyfriend and Bud is left alone with the flowers he had bought her.

Feeling blue from this combination of bad news, Bud spends an evening drinking Scotch and entertains himself by writing a fictional obituary for himself leading with several outrageous claims, e.g. “ Bud Stanley, the first man to perform open heart surgery on himself, died today in a hot air balloon accident. He was 44. His wife, Miss France, has confirmed the death.” When he hits the send button by mistake, the obit goes out on the wire service all over the country.  Imagine the surprise his co-workers felt when he showed up for work the next day!  Ironically, because the company’s computer system has been updated with Bud’s death, he cannot be fired nor can he work, so he begins to attend funerals and wakes of people he doesn’t know and surprisingly, finds meaning in these lives of complete strangers.  They have loving family, friends, meaningful work, or fascinating hobbies—-in short, they had lived a full and precious life.  So Bud decides to do so as well.  Enter Tim Bud’s landlord, a brilliant raconteur restricted by a bicycle accident to a wheelchair but full of life.   He and Bud explore the fundamental question of why are we here in the first place?

The author, John Kenney, provided his own answer in an NPR interview with Scott Simon:  “try to be a decent friend and a great father and a semi-unannoying husband and to try to enjoy myself.”  Not a bad set of goals!

This is a very funny and touching book. The dialogue is often laugh out loud funny while the relationship that Bud forms with Tim, is a beautiful thing to behold.  Alternately laughing and sighing, I totally enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.  Turns out that like the Harvard Men’s Study has shown in its look at several hundred members of the Harvard College Class of 1938, happiness is all about relationships and love.