Five Funerals

Somers (The Burning City) riffs on Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies with a choose-the-outcome novel structure in this sophisticated and darkly comic horror outing. Noting in his introduction that readers should “read until you hit a redirect—a footnote pointing toward one of the stories at the end of the book,” Somers unspools the ghastly fates of the 1995 graduates of Bishop Carlbus Prep school. It kicks off with senior Amy, who is determined to throw the most legendary graduation party ever. But domineering Amy is not well liked by her classmates, and the party quickly spirals into chaos. By sunrise, Amy is dead from a fall down the basement stairs. Over the years, the rest of Amy’s classmates die one by one in ways too increasingly bizarre to be overlooked: Xerxes is eaten by mice, Quentin sinks in a mire, and Fanny suffers from leech-induced anemia. At the funeral of Zillah, who died of alcohol poisoning, the few remaining students realize that someone or something is deliberately picking them off. Through its clever structure, the book posits a number of explanations but offers no easy answers, which may frustrate some. Somers unpicks the seams of Gorey’s original to create portraits of despairing and complicated adults, all broken and haunted by the trauma of their youth. It’s an eerie gem. (Feb.)