A Memoir of the Afterlife. When I read the subtitle, I must admit I wondered how one writes a memoir of life after death when one is still living and breathing. This is an unorthodox approach to what is a sacred belief to many. The opening line is a great hook:

 “I’ve gotta tell ya, when the End came it was really quick.” Naturally, I had to see what followed that line.

The narrator is Barry Wilcox, a man in his fifties and an avid golfer. He finds himself buried in a bunker facing an impossible shot. His father’s words come to mind:

“Barry, son, there’s a way to hit this shot so it goes right in the jar. Take your time, and find that way.”  Barry states that this philosophy has served him well in impossible matters. He assesses the situation, takes a swing and “Fourth of July fireworks explode in his brain.” Even before he hits the ground he finds himself, intact, all six-one of him sitting on a curb in a mysterious place called The Bottoms.

Like the neighborhood tavern where old and new friends congregate and share stories, laughs, and gripes, “Angelo’s” is not much different from life in “Before,” which is the term used for life on the human plane. It’s designed to make the transition easier for the new arrival.

Barry meets Leonardo da Vinci, John Wayne,  Abraham Lincoln, the archangel Uriel, Socrates  and St. James of the Infirmary Blues fame. To his own amazement, Barry is able to identify each of them as if meeting these greats from Before is an everyday occurrence. It floors him when John Wayne rises, strides over and takes hold of his shoulders and says, “Look, you guys. Barry’s here.”

We follow Barry, Miranda, Joe, Roy, Sylvia and Waldo on their journey from the Bottoms through the various plateaus of Heaven. The primary destination is “Downtown.” Getting there is filled with unexpected twists and turns that frequently have the reader holding his breath and squirming in his seat.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

The writing in this novel, and it certainly is a novel approach, is expert, exciting, and filled with one-of-a-kind similes and metaphors. The story takes the reader on a roller coaster adventure, always wondering what’s around the next curve. The ending is a knockout you won’t see coming.  Sweet Heavenly Daze is a must read, no matter what your personal belief. It’s entertaining, illuminating, often humorous, and designed to make you think. It could be this way, couldn’t it?

I recommend this book highly. There’s not another one like it. I give it five stars.

Review by D. H. Clair, Sr. Editor

The Infinite Writer

 Read a clip from the novel:

     I've gotta tell ya, when the End came it was really quick, too speedy for me to catch, much less to stop. And when the curtain tumbled down on my life, it shot up again on the afterlife so fast it left me gasping. The air smelled a little off, the damp sour tang of street gutters after they soak up the stink of a city. And even though the gauzy blue light twisted and curled in the late night fog, I knew exactly where I was. Well, if not the precise street address, at least I knew the name of the country.

     Let me start at the beginning, with my death. Sunday morning it was. Our regular foursome was approaching number 8 green at Willow Oaks. Actually I had just sliced a seven-iron and was buried in a steep greenside bunker, facing a downhill lie. Short-sided and an extra slick green breaking downhill left to right. An impossible shot.

     I'm starting to climb into the bunker and my dad's voice comes to me, as it always does in these kinds of situations. He said, "Barry, son, there's a way to hit this shot it goes right in the jar. Take your time, and find that way." I've taken comfort in that kind of optimism over the years, and the truth of what he said has helped me out in a lot of other situations. You know, there's a way to do this impossible think so that gets done.

     So, brimming with confidence that I can not only jab this pill out of the dirt, but maybe also get it close enough to save par, I start into my regular pre-shot bunker routine. This old song from Simon and Garfunkel woozes its way up and I'm hearing the lyric, 'Time it was and what a time it was: a time of innocence, a time of confidences'. La-la-la- it went on, and when it gets to, 'preserve your memories, they're all that's left you', that's when I took my swing, and that's when this gnarly little aneurysm skulking deep in the cool caves of my brain decides to explode. Little bugger cracks open like a ripe red boil and spurts a wad of hot ruby goo all over my unsuspecting cerebellum. There was a flashing instant of Fourth-of-July fireworks, and before I could topple over face down in the sand, I'm popping out on the street in The Bottoms. The whole thing was pretty sudden, not at all like they tell you in books or you see on TV. There was no long tunnel, no glowing lights, no hi-speed instant replay of my life. Just Boom, and that was that.

     I remember a sharp little explosion, and there I was on a city street that looked like something of a '30s gangster movie. The streets of gold didn't look so much like gold, but more like brass, or that kind of cheap, shiny stuff they put on little decorative pots and gift planters at Kmart. It felt like a lower end neighborhood or maybe a warehouse district, felt as though during the day these streets would be busy and bustling with--people here. Do they (or we) call them people here? Are we angels? Or are we just dead? Or are we somehow alive in a new, unforeseeable, and therefore unseen, way?

. . .

     Anyway, after a long time (Hours? Days? Time is really hard to get here) I caught my mental balance and scoped the streets up and down, checking out my bearings, looking for a place to grab a bite. Hunger was the last thing I expected, but there it was.

     I gave my body a onceover and found myself intact, so to speak. Six-one, good shape, long arms and legs all worked fine. I checked my hair and head, and while there wasn't any halo - no big surprise there - I did hear music playing down the block. Not a hundred feet away was this blue neon bar sign flashing "Angelo's."  OK, so there's an ironic sense of humor at play here, and that can only be a good thing, right? The music got louder as I strode toward the sign, and when I pulled open the frosted glass door and stepped inside, it felt like a neighborhood tavern, a working class sort of joint, round wood tables and a bar that had stools with no backs. The place was rustic and faded and a little frayed around the edges. Through the blue haze of heavy smoke, I recognized some people, although I'd never met any of them, you know, Before.

     Sitting together at a large round table in the middle of the room werre Socrates, John Wayne, Leonardo da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, the Archangel Uriel, and St. James of the Infirmary Blues fame. How did I know who they were? Beats me. This place is loaded with strangeness. It comes with the territory. . .

     When John Wayne pushed his chair back with a loud scraping noise, stood up, and strode to where I stood stiff as a tombstone, I knew that something far outside of my limited experience was about to happen. He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked as though he was about to kiss me on both cheeks like the Russians do. But instead, he grinned all over himself an called out to his table, "Look, you guys! Barry's here!" And then he said as he ushered me toward a vacant chair beside his, "Welcome to heaven son. Buy you a brew?"

~/~

Sweet Heavenly Daze is available at Amazon.com, Buybooksontheweb.com or an autographed copy on John's website.