A National Book Critics Circle Award–winning novel and "a narrative of dazzling virtuosity" about love, death and the afterlife ( Publishers Weekly). Baritone Bay, mid-afternoon. A couple, naked, married almost thirty years, are lying murdered in the dunes. "Their bodies had expired, but anyone could tell—just look at them—that Joseph and Celice were still devoted. For while his hand was touching her, curved round her shin, the couple seemed to have achieved that peace the world denies, a period of grace, defying even murder. Anyone who found them there, so wickedly disfigured, would nevertheless be bound to see that something of their love had survived the death of cells. The corpses were surrendered to the weather and the earth, but they were still a man and wife, quietly resting; flesh on flesh; dead, but not departed yet." "A tour de force." — Library Journal "A work of near-genius . . . [by] one of the most distinctive and talented writers of our time." — Literary Review "Magnificent." — The Sunday Telegraph "A brilliant, astonishing novel." — The Times (London)

ジム・クレイスの『Being Dead』は、死を生物学的な冷徹さと詩的な慈しみで描く驚異の文学です。夫婦の肉体が朽ちゆく過程を自然の循環として捉える視点は、読者の死生観を根底から揺さぶります。腐敗すら愛の一部とする筆致は、残酷なまでに美しく、生命の本質を鮮やかに浮き彫りにします。 映像化作品では、原作の緻密な情景が視覚的に補完され、静止した肉体と躍動する自然の対比が鮮烈に際立ちます。言葉の深淵と映像の存在感。その相乗効果により、死は単なる終わりではなく、地球の営みへ還る崇高な儀式へと昇華されるのです。