A Trick I Learned from Dead Men

(Paperback)

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Longlisted for the Womens Prize for Fiction 2013The most perfectly formed, originally voiced, heartbreakingly real story I've read in years. I laughed, I cried, and mostly I just marvelled at how bloody brilliant this book is - Mariella FrostrupFor fans of Six Feet Under this bittersweet novel is tragic and life affirming. This is a book for fans of Will Self, Nicola Barker and Mark Haddon. Longlisted for the Womens Prize for Fiction 2013After the disappearance of their father and the sudden death of their mother, Lee Hart and his deaf brother, Ned, imagine all is lost until Lee starts an apprenticeship at the local funeral home. Here, in the company of a crooning ex-publican, a closet pole vaulter, a terminally-ill hearse driver, and the dead of their local town, old wounds begin to heal and love arrives as a beautiful florist aboard a 'Fleurtations' delivery van, and Lee discovers there is life after death after all.

Reviews

Both tragic yet somehow life-affirming, her novel holds you to the end * Sunday Times *
A dark, but oddly funny novel... Sad, funny and very moving * Easy Living *
A Trick I Learned From Dead Men is a wonderful book, written with a mixture of pathos and bleak humour that brings to mind classic television comedies such as The Office... Lees narration seems beautifully true: it is stop-start, clich ridden, and marked by that peculiarly British tendency to point out the stray cloud in an otherwise spotless sky * Financial Times *
Pitch-perfect ... blackly funny, moving * Independent *
Aldridge beautifully captures Lees thought patterns... Her research is impeccable, and the quirky portrait of funeral home routine will appeal to fans of the TV series Six Feet Under * Daily Mail *

Author Bio

Kitty Aldridge was born in the Middle East but grew up in England. A graduate of the Drama Centre, London, she has since worked in theatre, film, and television as an actress and writer. Her first novel, Pop (Cape, 2001), was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002 and shortlisted for the Pendleton May First Novel Award 2002. Her second novel, Cryers Hill, was published by Cape in 2007. Her short story, Arrivederci Les, won the Bridport Short Story Prize 2011 (Bridport Prize Anthology 2011).