Malagash

This is a quiet little novel about dealing with grief. Sunday doesn't want her father to die, but it is a certainty that he doesn't have much time left. To ensure that he lives on forever in some way, she is using her considerable technological skills to create a computer virus based off of recordings of her father: his jokes, his wisdom, his everyday musings. As the novel progresses, you get glimpses of the rest of her family - primarily her little brother and her mother - and how they are dealing with his imminent death as well.

Sunday's relationship with her father is obviously the drawing point here. Despite the briefness of the novel, Comeau establishes all members of the family really well, and their relationships with one another make you feel their pain at losing this man. It also has some darkly funny bits, due to the jovial personality of the dad:

“Don't be stupid,” he says. “Of course we have to. This is research for when you write my obituary. Who else could I trust with this? Sunday, I am counting on you to not let anyone say that I died surrounded by nameless loved ones. Or that I lost my courageous battle with cancer.”“I'll tell people you won,” I promise him.“Exactly!” He laughs. I love it when my father laughs. “You tell people that. The cancer is dead. I did what needed to be done. I'm a hero.”

The inevitable happens without preamble: there are no heroic last words, no fanfare, no clues left behind to uncover some hidden mystery; it just...happens, and you know it's going to happen, and it still punches you in the gut anyway. Proof that you don't always need an excessive amount of pages to make you care, you just need the right words. 4/5