Wallace Price is a hard man, a lawyer, partner at an important legal firm. His focus is on himself and on his success. But fate got in the way in the form of a deadly heart attack while at the office on the weekend. Which is how he ended up in the afterlife clad in sweat pants and flip-flop sandals.
So Wallace is dead, which kind of spoiled all his plans. He did attend his own funeral, which he was rather displeased to see was so sparsely attended. But there was someone at the funeral who was completely unknown to him, a small Chinese woman, who, of all the people in attendance, was the only one who could see him.
Because she was there for Wallace. Because Meiying is a Reaper and she is there to start Wallace on his trip to his ultimate destination. Which is how Wallace ended up at a quaint little tea shop in the mountains run by Hugo Freeman who serves the dead tea and guides them through the Whispering Door and into eternity. Hugo is the Ferryman.
Meiying, when she is not being a Reaper, works for Hugo in the kitchen of the tea shop. Besides Meiying, Hugo's grandfather and his dog, Apollo also reside at the tea shop. But unlike Meiying, Apollo and Nelson, the grandfather, are both ghosts, like Wallace. Ghosts who refused to pass through the Whispering Door and into eternity because Hugo still needed them in his life. And pretty soon, the same is true of Wallace as Hugo and Wallace find companionship in each other that they have been missing in their lives. Makes for an uneven relationship, though, since Hugo is a living man and Wallace is a dead man.
I was a bit bored with the first quarter of the novel but it got much more interesting as the story progressed. Parts of it were quite moving, especially Chapter 14, which moved me to tears several times. It also had some rather hilarious moments including at the end where Wallace ends up as a floating balloon ghost who needs to be tied down to keep him from floating away and into the, I assume, the infinite depths of Space.
Hugo is a bit too much of a goody-goody for my taste though, as I can show by this passage about him:
But it was Hugo who Wallace watched the most. Hugo, who seemed to have all the time in the world for anyone who asked for his attention. A gaggle of older women came in the early afternoon, fawning and cooing over him, pinching his cheeks and giggling when he blushed. He knew them all by name, and they clearly adored him. They all left with smiles on their faces, paper cups of tea steaming in their hands.
It wasn't just the older women. It was everyone. Kids demanded he lift them up and he did, but not with his hands. They held onto his thinly muscled biceps as he raised his arms, their feet kicking into nothing, their laughter bright and loud. Younger women flirted, batting their eyes at him. Men shook his hand furiously, their grips looking strong as their arms pumped up and down. They called him by his first name. They all seemed delighted to see him.
A paragon, for sure. His grandfather, Nelson, was more my speed. A bit of a smart ass who wasn't above the occasional ghostly prank, including smacking Wallace with his cane when he was displeased with him.
I think my favorite character, though, was Apollo, Hugo's ghost dog who had refused to pass on after dying and stayed by Hugo's side because Hugo still needed him. And who was not above taking a ghostly whiz on people who came into the tea shop and upset things, like the nosy phony medium who has the hots for Hugo and the health inspector who has a grudge against Hugo because Hugo spurned his advances.
The book certainly has its lighter moments, like when Wallace is learning how to manifest different clothing after getting tired of sweat pants and flip-flops and ends up dressed only in briefs and thigh high boots. But it also has very touching and serious moments, as the dead pass through the shop, dealing with their deaths and their regrets and their lost lives, of which Wallace is one of, facing the truth about why his marriage failed and how success in business became more important to him than success as a human being. And how Hugo, Nelson, Meiying, and Apollo become more important to him than anyone he left behind in life.
Here is a review by Berkeley Fiction Review.
