YOU'RE NOT DEAD

A young man struggles with the realities of a life-altering disease in this debut novel.

The Hero—a 24-year-old Canadian music store manager with a number of face piercings—is sick: “His head hurt and his world was spinning. He awoke in his basement feeling lethargic and slow. The stairs to the main floor were narrow, old and daunting. He ascended them as deftly as he could, avoiding steps that were notoriously weak.” He decides to go to the doctor, who tells him he has the flu. He returns home and goes to sleep. When he wakes up again, he’s in a hospital bed—where he discovers he’s been in a coma for weeks. His parents tell him that he’s suffering from encephalitis—inflammation of the brain—and that he’s now legally a quadriplegic. From there, he begins a long, arduous journey back to normal life—or as normal a life as is still available to him. The road is full of surprises, most of them bad, and the Hero rarely feels hopeful about his chances. Interspersed with this man’s odyssey are self-contained vignettes about others dealing with extreme scenarios: A woman is trapped in an endless simulated space mission; a man in a wheelchair is drawn into a terrorist plot; a kidnapped man waits to be murdered by his captors. Garden’s prose is muscular and biting, capturing the numbing anguish that is the Hero’s general state of being: “He had fallen prey to what is called ‘hospitalization.’ The idea was that time had lost its meaning due to being months in four walls where he was dictated what to do and when. He had also lost all respect for death he had once had. He watched people give up all hope.” The book is a brutal read. To highlight his dehumanizing experience, the Hero does not have a name, and there are few characters in his story. As it goes on, readers will begin to feel the same creeping horror experienced by the Hero. The vignettes make up the weaker half of the equation: They read a bit like undercooked Chuck Palahniuk premises. While the novel does not fully coalesce, it manages to elicit strong feelings, requiring that readers consider human suffering and the uncertainty that it brings.

This raw tale about a harrowing journey leaves a mark.