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Good versus evil. Struggles of faith. These have been themes of literature for centuries, if not from the first time humankind told stories. In fact, the best-selling book of all time — the Bible — is built on these themes. In the brilliant and disturbing A Prayer for the Dying, Stewart O’Nan brings an Old Testament feel to post-Civil War Wisconsin.
 Jacob Hansen is a Civil War vet who now resides with his wife and young daughter in Friendship, Wisc. He is not only the sheriff, he also serves as the town undertaker and a preacher. But Friendship is on the verge of two crises of Biblical proportions — a possible diphtheria outbreak and a raging fire in a tinderbox summer.
Hansen’s roles combine to make us wonder if he should have been named Job, beset as he is by travails and tribulations. As sheriff he is faced with the task of not only protecting his town, but, joined with his role as undertaker, preventing the diphtheria from spreading elsewhere. As undertaker, he is responsible for taking care of the physical bodies of the diseased deceased, whose numbers increase with time. As preacher, he is responsible for taking care of the spiritual needs of both the dead and the living. All these duties also compete with his duty as a husband and father and his human instincts.
What with the focus on disease and death, you wouldn’t think this is the type of book that might be considered “unputdownable.” Yet it comes very, very close. O’Nan draws us in and keeps us riveted as Hansen struggles with his own ghosts, fears and emotions as he seeks to fulfill his duties to his family, his community and neighboring areas. Part of the power comes from A Prayer for the Dying being written in second personal singular. Although Hansen is relating the story, he refers to himself as “you,” such as, “You’ve been in the business long enough to understand grief.” This unique perspective leaves the reader doing and experiencing as much as Hansen. The perspective is also indicative of the impact of Hansen’s Civil War experiences. The form of narration reinforces the impression that there are many facets to Hansen’s personality and that he at times functions outside himself, with one part of him carrying on an ongoing discussion with another part.
At the core of the book is the internal struggle that can created by choices and Hansen’s own struggle of faith. Should he and the town’s doctor impose a quarantine, given the twin threats of diphtheria and fire? If so, when? Should he use his knowledge of the fact a couple outsiders have died of diphtheria to send his wife and infant daughter away for safety’s sake while not telling anyone else? What risks do his jobs pose his family and anyone else with whom he comes in contact? Why has God beset him and his town with plague and fire? O’Nan packs this all into less than 200 pages of highly readable prose.
Originally published in 1999, Picador Books is using the book’s 10th anniversary to release another paperback edition as the summer 2009 selection for “The Best Book You Never Read.” While A Prayer for the Dying isn’t beach reading, it is a superb choice. If, like me, you haven’t read this novel before, you are missing something very special. If you’ve already read it, it is unquestionably worth reading again — and again
It’s astonishing how quickly things fall apart.
Stewart O’Nan, A Prayer for the Dying
 Here’s one of those wonderful places where technology can enhance tradition. In connection with Memorial Day weekend, Sean Askay, an innovative Google Earth developer, has launched Map the Fallen.
Using Google Earth 5.0, you can view a map of the United States that shows where each of the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan through March of this year are from. Not only that, “you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.” It’s a project that’s been four years in the making on Sean’s personal time. It is both stunning and quite the tribute to those who have died.
By the way, The Big Picture also commemorates Memorial Day in its own imitable style.
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war.
“With God On Our Side,” Bob Dylan
Achievement Awards
Blog headline of the week: Kindle Bloggers Become Amazon’s Bitches.
Tell us what you really think: UK auto writer says of new Honda, “It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.”
Bookish Linkage
What would a trip be without a stop at an independent bookstore or two? I walked out of Amherst Books this week with three library additions, two of which were books I’d not heard of before going in the store.
“Since 2002, production of on-demand titles has soared 774% compared to a 126% increase in traditional titles.” (Via.)
Proceeding on the altogether correct theory that if you haven’t read it, it’s still new, HarperCollins has launched a blog called Backlist. Each day it will feature an “older” book. (Via.)
Nonbookish Linkage
How come no one’s buying music CDs these days? Because they suck!” (Via.)
The average sales price of a home in Detroit? $11,533.
There’s an easy response to these threats: I don’t need your effin’ card.
Life is a series of dogs.
George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty
They’re a cyberspace scourge, technology’s version of a pestilence. And there’s no real cure. The sad fact is spammers are here to stay. Yet just as diseases have varying degrees of menace from, say, the common cold to the plague, the same is true of spammers. The common cold are the idiots who fill our e-mail boxes with offers for ED cures or drugs. Near the other end of the spectrum are those who’s sole purpose is to try to fleece people, most often the gullible or the elderly, out of thousands of dollars.
 The latter are the targets of Delete This at Your Peril: One Man’s Hilarious Exchanges with Internet Spammers. Written by “Bob Servant,” with assistance from Neil Forsyth, this slim volume contains the e-mails Servant. of Broughty Ferry, Scotland, exchanges with a variety of e-mail spammers as he strings them along with daffy questions, requests, information and demands. The premise is akin to that of so-called “scam-baiters,” who seek to force scammers to actually go somewhere or take stupid actions. While scam-baiters are in search of barnyard justice, Servant’s take is aimed at fun and perhaps showing the spammers are as gullible as the prey upon which they feed.
To a North American or European of average intelligence, it’s plain that Servant’s responses were as over the top as they were eager. For example, when he receives an e-mail and picture from “Alexandra,” purportedly an attractive 25-year-old Russian woman looking for a husband, his reply exclaims “what a pair of bazookas” she has and he gives it the subject line, “By Christ You Could Take Someone’s Eyes Out With Them.”. As the e-mail exchanges continue, he sends a picture of an elderly man, later mentioning that although he is 62, he has “a hell of a lot of cash at my disposal.” Alexandra desperately wants to meet him. All she needs is 1,000 Euros to get a visa. As Bob continues to string her along, he even gets her to apply for a job as a waitress at the local pub.
In the book’s opening foray, Servant responds to “the only son of late King Arawi of tribal land” in Togo. It seems the king has died and his son needs help to get his $75 million inheritance. Servant can get 20 percent if he helps. Servant first demands and negotiates a higher percentage. Once he’s done that, he tells the prince he doesn’t want the money in cash because the quantity would be difficult to conceal. Instead, he wants to be paid in diamonds, gold and lions. As the prince continues to try to get bank account numbers or some $2,000 sent to him by Western Union to start the inheritance process, Servant begins insisting that the lions, or at least one, can talk. And even when Servant tells the prince he has no money, the prince offers to send him talking lions if Servant can just send him $500 or $700 to cover the cost of shipping them to Scotland.
Much of the humor is simply the audacity with which Servant yanks the scammers’ chains. Yet evidently on legal advice, Delete This at Your Peril contains plenty of footnote disclaimers that, for example, no bowling club in Broughty Ferry has a Saucy Cartoon Competition. Yet there is another common thread beside humor. The persistence of the scammers shows they will stop at little or nothing if they believe they have a fish on the line. All that matters is getting the mark to send a bank account number or make a Western Union money transfer. It would have been interesting if Servant had retained the dates and times on the e-mails to see how long it was taking the spammers to respond to his bizarre questions and requests.
Overall, this is an enjoyable trip as Servant leads spammers down the garden path. The biggest problem is the path doesn’t end in a spike-filled pit.
Bob please send the £1,700 now so I can send the 4 lions and 2 leopards. I think one of the lions may talk a little.
Bob Servant, Delete This at Your Peril
Being a lawyer, I generally think truth might be a defense to one lawyer calling another one a jackass. But the “yo’ momma” retort does go over the line (as does a touch of battery.)
I think I take a bit of pride in scoring less than 50 percent in the Infamous Lawsuits Quiz. (Via.)
Not how you want the lede in a WSJ post to start if you’re an attorney: “apparent inability to produce more than $9 million in settlement money he was overseeing for clients.”
I’m one of those “hold the pickles, hold the lettuce” (and everything else) guys so it burns me when my order gets screwed up — but $100,000???
The NY Daily News selects its most ridiculous lawsuits of all time. (Via.)
Five lawyer ads that make any Supreme Court nominee look brilliant.
It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.
Herman Hesse, Demian
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