Eden Robins (When Franny Stands Up) has written a smashingly good second novel, an utterly imaginative, genre-defying masterpiece: Remember You Will Die. Her blunt title is an accurate barometer that the end is nigh. In fact, the dead populate most of these pages. Their stories are revealed predominantly through obituaries that range from deeply soulful to delightfully guffaw-inducing. In between are occasional newspaper articles, lists, notes, word etymologies, and other ephemera that highlight death. Loosely, cleverly bound together, the narrative that emerges spotlights a singular mother/daughter relationship that will require 300 years of background to understand.

On November 6, 2102, an article appears in the New York Dispatch entitled "Mystery Surrounds Report of Girl Drowned in East River." According to an eyewitness to the watery plunge, the apparent action seems self-driven, complete with an alleged suicide note that was folded in the shape of an airplane and thrown toward the shore. Both paper and body remain missing. An anonymous call from a blocked number produces "the only concrete clue to the girl's identity": she was called Poppy.

Robins then inserts the first of multiple, fascinating etymologies. The word is, logically, "poppy": as plant ("flowers... with valuable narcotic properties"); as history ("the wanton brutality of the British Empire during the Opium Wars"); as symbolism ("of battlefields and war dead... possibly as far back as the time of Genghis Khan"). Robins also appends meaningful example sentences: "History wants poppy to be a symbol: of war, death, intoxication, resurrection. But poppy means only itself. Her needs are simple; she tilts her smiling face to the sun." These etymological interruptions are many; readers are encouraged to pay close attention to the wide-ranging background and usage of these singled-out words because prescient hints, clever asides, and a-ha revelations will be shared in each lexical intermission.

Two related obituaries follow. The first is a highly personal 1864 tribute for a 39-year-old floriographer devoted to roses--and divining young ladies' fortunes--who dies far too young on the battlefield. The second appears again in the New York Dispatch, 12 days after the opening article, and is the official obituary of Poppy Fletcher. Her "existence was little more than rumor," but her short life--a mere 17 years--is pieced together from scant details: "Her birth was unregistered, and no formal documentation has been discovered, no birth certificate or social security number, no school enrollment forms. Only a single photo of Poppy as a toddler, discovered in the cell phone of a deceased man who claimed to be a former neighbor, offers any physical evidence of her existence." One fact is certain: Poppy is the "sole offspring of the fugitive AI known as Peregrine," who was herself "a rogue science experiment" of computer scientist Matthew Fletcher, who was both Peregrine's "maker and 'consort.' "

In under a dozen pages, Robins establishes the central Peregrine/Poppy mother/daughter relationship. To tell their story, she deftly constructs a historical trail encompassing multiple centuries, conceives pioneering science, flags tragic dysfunctions and disconnects. If that's just the novel's very beginning, imagine what more Robins will concoct in the 300 pages that follow. One by one, each obituary comes closer to divulging the multi-layered origins of how Peregrine was created, how she defied her detractors, and manifested into a feeling, thinking, adaptable body able to create human life. Robins skillfully weaves together characters, relationships, events--dropping clues throughout via those slyly relevant etymologies (collapse, fathom, peach, latent, escape)--and makes the impossible believable.

Robins is a mischievous writer, detouring and distracting readers with mad scientists, performance artists, and fake deaths. Anne Frank survives to become an octogenarian, although her daughter (allegedly fathered by a priest) only made it to 42. Robins just as convincingly plays solemn soothsayer in contemplating fatal school shootings that continue decades into the future, Earth's ongoing destruction, the ruinous colonization of potential faraway alternatives. Tragedies loom, but humor--poignant, gentle, sardonic--is never far: a mortician goes by the online handle "the_decomposer"; a bar has the strippers sing and the customers strip; and the widow of the world's richest man has a "mycorrhizal network" experiment buried next to a McDonald's parking lot. Every inventive obituary is a connective micro-story of loss, grief, celebration, and regret, with surprising glimmers of hope.

So much happens. And eventually, it all makes satisfying, rewarding sense. Robins invites audiences along to experience the less-than-straightforward connectedness of humanity's past, present, and future. Time, alas, always proves fatal because "the only certainty is death, and the only other certainty is uncertainty." Yes, everyone dies, but Robins magnificently ensures their legacies linger. --Terry Hong

Eden Robins (photo: Jeff Kurysz)

Chicago-based novelist Eden Robins first wrote about the power of laughter in the novel When Franny Stands Up, which landed her on numerous best-of-2022 lists. Humor also runs throughout her masterful stand-out sophomore novel, Remember You Will Die (Sourcebooks Landmark, October 22, 2024), even though it's populated mostly with dead people. By 2102, the so-called singularity--when computer intelligence surpasses that of humans--has long since happened and the AI known as Peregrine is about to learn her daughter Poppy has died. To unravel what happened will require a three-century excavation of relationships, cultures, science, history, and brilliantly executed etymology.

Help me out here: elevator pitch description?

It's a novel told entirely in obituaries, spanning 300 years, about grief and art and what it means to leave a legacy, and about humanity as seen through the eyes of an AI woman coping with loss.

Thank you! So what was that a-ha moment when you decided this is the book you wanted to write? How did you even start? 

I feel like this book screams I WROTE IT IN THE PANDEMIC, and this is 100% true. I had just quit my job in either the best or worst timing, in March 2020. I immediately got stuck with writer's block--and terror, and grief, and uncertainty. I had no focus or attention span, I started and abandoned a bunch of new projects, but I found some solace in novels that were told in fragmented ways--like Jenny Offill's terrific Dept. of Speculation,which was my first clue.

Then I read an interview with Lynda Barry, cartoonist extraordinaire. She said that when she was writing her novel Cruddy, she was also stuck, and what got her out of it was writing the rough draft in paint, on yellow legal pads. So I got some acrylic paint, a tiny paintbrush, and some yellow legal pads and just started trying to sort through my brain on paper. It was remarkable because the slow pace meant I could really only think of one word at a time, and some amazing stuff came out. Not a draft of anything, just, you know, ideas. I think I set my unconscious mind up to think differently because one day I was doing nothing special, and this idea just popped into my head: What if I wrote a book of obituaries? 

It sounded completely bonkers, so I decided to try. I watched the documentary Obit, about the New York Times obituary desk. They essentially get an assignment to write an obit, start to finish, in one day. So I decided that would be my process, too. I'd write whatever I felt like and figure out how it all fit together later.

And how did you know you'd be telling a story through dead people?

I really like to make my life hard. Also, I love a bit of mischief and trying something new. I thought, what if all my characters were dead? What if humanity was dying, and what if this wasn't, ultimately, a tragedy? I also decided I didn't want any standard narrative in the book. A fun challenge, but without a lot of precedents I could lean on for help!

And your Barry-inspired legal pad pages inspired the amazing etymological word-play and those slyly revealing example sentences.

Certainly, some of the words came from the paint-writing. But I also just love etymology. I have the Etymonline app on my phone. I see etymologies as a kind of archeology of humanity--they retain the feel of the original word in some way, even if they now mean something different. As for the example sentences--this became my little trick to squeeze in some narrative when I said I wouldn't have any.

You cover a good 300 years here, from the 19th to 22nd centuries. How did you do your past and future research?

I get a little obsessed with research. But it was a little easier here than in a regular novel because I only focused on things I was SUPER interested in, so going down a rabbit hole to learn about them was fun. I also only did one obit a day, so I could focus on a single topic, and I tried to build a whole world with a few key details. I tried to flesh out enough of the world to make sense and then left a bunch to the imagination.

I should also say that I have a friend who is a deep-sea biologist, and who has taken me to the bottom of the ocean in the Alvin submersible, so I got to use some of that fun stuff in the book. Basically a potpourri of everything I love and am interested in and like to think about got thrown in here. A dream!

In a book filled with death, you've intertwined at least as much humor. Your bio reveals you've written jokes professionally and done stand-up. How did you balance being respectful and getting the timing just right? 

A lot of my past day jobs have revolved around using humor to engage and relax people while they're learning about complicated, emotional, or difficult things. I've learned so much from this work--really paying attention to people's moods and states of mind and using humor not as a distraction from but as an ingrained part of difficult conversations. Humor has always been an integral part of my writing because I don't see comedy as separate from drama, it's all a continuum.

Humor plays such a huge part in how we connect to each other, how we learn new things, and how we poke at power structures. I do think we sometimes think of humor as frivolous or unserious but that's such an unfortunate perspective because it is such a powerful tool.

You've woven the mother/child relationship throughout here. Did your own relationships inspire part of this writing?

I am not a mother, and I have just reached the cusp of life where being a biological mother is no longer possible for me. This is mostly fine, and mostly planned! But that cusp of life does really throw into relief the fact that mother/not-mother are two VERY divergent paths, and I've occasionally found myself a little wistful, which surprised me. I don't know what it's like to be a mother, but I did want to explore what that might feel like here. And even though the mother in this book is not human, I think that human motherhood must feel a little alien, too. It must feel strange to create a person who then becomes their own person, while you struggle with wanting to hold that person close and knowing you need to let go.

What's the one thing you want your audience to know before they read the book?

Oh, I'm terrible--I don't want to give any hints. I know it's very unpopular to care about spoilers these days, but I really want readers to unfurl the story at their own pace as they go, to pick up on the things that appeal to them, and to go back and discover other things in future reads. One thing I do want readers to know, though, is that, yes, the book is weird; no, they're not missing anything; and, yes, you can just kind of let it wash over you. That's all--there's no wrong way to read it. --Terry Hong