Will Self

Surrounded by her two daughters, Lily Bloom, an aging American in the final stages of cancer, spends her time in a bed in Central London's Royal Ear Hospital, drugged with painkillers, moving in and out of consciousness, and railing against the unfairness of the world around, the sins of those around her, and her coming death. Reprint.

How the Dead Live

Scabrous, vicious and unpleasant in life, Lily Bloom has not been noticeably mellowed by death. She has changed addresses, of course, and now inhabits a basement flat in Dulston - London's borough for those no longer troubled by breathing - but if anything her temperament has worsened. Finding it hard to deal with the (enforced) company of a calcified, pop-obsessed foetus, her dead, foul-mouthed son and three gruesome creatures made of her own unwanted fat, she must find something to do with her time. So how do the dead live? And what happens when they stop being dead?

How the Dead Live

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