Finished reading A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan today. It's just about the bleakest book I've ever read: the story of an diptheria outbreak in a small town shortly after the Civil War. There's a lot in here about God, and faith and doubt, and how to go on living in the world of death--and believe me it doesn't pull any punches. The front cover describes the novel as a mix between Stephen Crane and Stephen King--that's pretty close, although I'd add "edited by Sylvia Plath and agented by Dr. Kevorkian."

I'd reread Man's Search for Meaning as a existential antidote, but someone stole it from me five years ago. Damn you, Nina Baliga! Or whoever it was.

What this novel really put me in mind of was "Lot's Wife," my favorite work in the Cleveland Museum of Art. You can't get a full sense of the piece on the 'net; it's mixed media, and just a little three-dimensional. In person, it's incredibly powerful. But you get the idea.

Notable quirk: A Prayer tor the Dying is written entirely in second person. O'Nan basically pulls off this nearly impossible task for 200 pages, although it goes without saying that If On A Winter's Night A Traveler remains the best second person novel ever written.