Malagash

Facing her father’s imminent death, Sunday, the young protagonist of Comeau’s affecting novella, has devised a plan. Surreptitiously recording their conversations, Sunday will transcribe his every word and keep his memory alive via a computer virus. Once completed, the virus “will say his words for him; it will copy them into memory. Into the long stretches of unused storage. Like an echo in an empty room. Like the words written on the back of an old photograph, hidden by the frame.” Sunday’s quest to preserve her father in code poignantly explores how everyone confronts grief in his or her own idiosyncratic way. Known primarily for darkly comic novels and the webcomic A Softer World, Comeau effortlessly switches gears to expose the trauma, heartbreak, and humor in loss. Sunday’s efforts to transform her father into “a ghost story that computers tell one another in the dark” is an immensely touching tribute to a very human struggle with mortality. (Oct.)