Name: The Pallbearers' Club
ISBN: 9780063069916

Paul Tremblay

A cleverly voiced psychological thriller about an unforgettable--and unsettling--friendship, with blood-chilling twists, crackling wit, and a thrumming pulse in its veins--from the nationally bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song. What if the coolest girl you've ever met decided to be your friend? Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers' Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses. Okay, that part was a little weird. So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things - terrifying things - that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right? Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers' Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she's making cuts. Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers' Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unforgettable and unsettling friendship.

A Novel

The Pallbearers' Club

High Fidelity

Memory is a fucked-up thing, especially as time passes,

stretches, and yawns. Your comparison of time to a shuffled deck

of cards comes close to the truth, or a truth.

Does the adult you, the one who knows what is going to happen next to that kid, truly remember how you felt at seventeen? Is that kid forever trapped inside you, as easy to recall as the name of your first pet? All memoirs must trade in emotional ventriloquism; it’s part and parcel of a memoir’s allure. I’m more interested in the answer to this: Is it fair to young Art to be so harshly judged by someone who’s had decades to craft his responses?

I wondered if she was thinking something awful about me. We all think awful things about the ones we’re closest to. She followed it up with “You were always so creative. I’m sure it’s great because you’re very talented at everything you do, and I can’t wait to read it.” She said it with such sincerity, I felt awful for thinking she was thinking awful things about me.

(If/when this book is ever published, I wonder, will it hold up your wobbly legged couch or chair, will it be a door-stop or a bookend holding up the more beloved books, will you lend it to a friend to never see it again, will you donate it to a library or callously throw it into a donation bin, or will you leave it on a dusty shelf until you die and someone else then has to sort out what to do with it, as though the responsibility of the book was a curse to be passed on to the unsuspecting?)

I appreciated the format and the concept behind the novel, as well as the way it teeters between metaphor and realism and the paranormal. I feel like this mixture of what was real or imagined really heightened the emotional impact of the novel.

Unfortunately, though, it nearly lost me several times as I just really... did not like Art.

I appreciated the format and the concept behind the novel, as well as the way it teeters between metaphor and realism and the paranormal. I feel like this mixture of what was real or imagined really heightened the emotional impact of the novel.

Unfortunately, though, it nearly lost me several times as I just really... did not like Art.

Ana Hein

I really loved A Head Full of Ghosts, and I think if I reread it now, I would like Cabin at the End of the World way more than I did when I first read it, but man this book is not his best. Which sucks cause I LOVE vampires and actually new some Mercy Brown lore, but I didn't like Art at all and I didn't like the repetitive nature of their relationship. I get what Tremblay was going for with the self pittying schmuck high school guy into punk music, but I think my taste for self pitying men who refuse to grow or change has worn very thin from life. Ending is really good, but I think some of the vampire lore was confusing. I wish Mercy had more compelling intersections in the margins instead of almost entirely jokes or pot shots at Art

Adrian Victor

The Pallbearers Club is part bildungsroman, part confession. Part indie coming of age film, part psychological horror. It’s a style exercise wrapped in two unreliable narrators. It’s about the joy of life and the grief of death—wait, maybe I’ve got those two switched. It’s about Art, who is not Art, and Mercy, who is not Mercy. It’s about the nature of friendship, memory, and the narratives we write about ourselves. Or maybe it’s just about punk rock vampires.

It works, in large part, due to Tremblay’s vulnerable, messy, damaged, and damaging characters. Art is both sympathetic and infuriating, relatable in spite of (or because of) his self-involvement-disguised-as-self-hatred. Mercy is a forcibly (mis)assigned Manic Pixie Dream Girl who would probably rather let her cracks show through. 

They bond over the usual stuff. Punk music. Corpses. The loneliness of being different. The story, often more tragic character study than skin-crawling horror, spans 30+ years. It’s as slow of a burn as can be expected from a book with fewer than 300 pages, and it comes together in a finale that packs a wallop and takes full advantage of its unique format and unreliable narrator(s). 

It’s hard to say more without giving too much away, but I loved this book. Welcome to The Pallbearers Club.

Ryan LaFerney

“The Pallbearers Club” by Paul Tremblay is an intriguing, as well as often, darkly comic, horror novel that blurs the lines between fiction and memory, supernatural and ordinary. And for a book obsessed with death, it has a lot to say about life.

The Pallbearers’ Club is presented as a memoir written by Art Barbara looking back upon his life as his old friend Mercy Brown comments on the manuscript. She contradicts much of his version of events, presents a new perspective, changes things, and challenges him whilst having her own biases, as the pair have had a long and very toxic on/off friendship which lies at the core of the plot. At various times it is implied the text we are reading is fiction rather than a memoir and since Art is obviously an unreliable narrator, it is tricky to tell what is true, embellished or simply fiction. 

The basic plot is as follows: The book starts with Art in his final year of high school and although he is academically strong, he doesn't have much to put on his college applications to make himself stand out. He needs some extracurriculars. Due to long-term problems with his back, he does not participate in sport or any other curricular activities and to beef up his applications starts up a pallbearer’s club, effectively himself and a couple of disgruntled classmates who attend the funerals of those with no living relatives to make up the numbers. Via this ‘club’ he meets Mercy Brown and some of these scenes are quite funny, as Art takes his responsibilities very seriously as he is painfully shy and meeting girls at funerals is better than not meeting girls at all! Mercy just so happens to be the coolest girl he's ever met. She turns Art on to Punk Rock! She is fascinated by The Pallbearers Club and decides to tag along, with her Polaroid camera to take pictures — of the corpses. This isn't the only strange thing about her, though — aside from her obsession with New England folklore involving digging up the dead, there are a lot of other bizarre and terrifying things that happen whenever she's around. 

The second half of the book takes place decades later, with Art finds himself trying to understand everything that transpired in those teen years by writing it all down in The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. And a final confrontation with his old friend Mercy. Art becomes more and more suspicious of Mercy and whether she is a supernatural being or not (some sort vampire it is implied), Mercy insists she isn’t and that Art is losing his mind with the help of prescription drugs and alcohol. But, is he? Has he himself been turned into a monster?

Is it a memoir or a novel? Which of the two main characters can we trust? Your enjoyment of The Pallbearers Club may very much depend on how you enjoy Paul Tremblay literary tricks around these questions. Even though Art is very quick to blame others for his problems, the story also covers other areas, including aging, addiction and mental health. The novel repeatedly blurs the lines between fiction and memory. Art is an interesting and mostly sympathetic character. But, he is incredibly mopey and "emo". For some readers this may be an enduring quality for others, Art may get on your nerves.

The Pallbearers Club is a fun and interesting novel but a bit uneven. The opening of The Pallbearers Club is strong, especially as we see Art sets up the eponymous group and start his friendship with Mercy. It is very atmospheric, and often times, funny. The ending was excellent, creepy, sad, and fitting, and I thought it wrapped up things nicely. The middle unfortunately drags, and I think that’s because we’re left waiting for something else creepy to happen while Mercy is out of the picture for a little while and Art is going through his mid-life crisis. 

Nevertheless, The PallBearers Club is a fascinating read, and a different take on a vampire story. It encapsulates qualities from many distinctly different areas of writing. Blurring the lines between fiction and memory, supernatural and ordinary, Paul Tremblay's latest work is metatextual horror novel, that while uneven, may stand the test of time and sit next to the works of King, Shelley, Stoker for it's horrific inventiveness.

Michelle Miller

Loved the unique narrative style in the form of m̶e̶m̶o̶i̶r̶ novel with annotations from the second point of view. I felt warm and I felt sad, just witnessing a story of life and friendship through two truths in the style of a teen/coming of age/ drama movie. And I can accept both of them. Bittersweetly enjoyed this one. 

Ashlyn

I love this book for many reasons, but I won't write them here.

Leah Preston

Rebecca Lysaght

Globster

Erin Goss

Elise Harris

Elizabeth Neill

Mirella

"Books can have teeth. A whole mouthful of them. The Pallbearers Club has a whole lifetime of them." --Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of My Heart Is a Chainsaw A cleverly voiced psychological thriller about an unforgettable--and unsettling--friendship, with blood-chilling twists, crackling wit, and a thrumming pulse in its veins--from the nationally bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song. What if the coolest girl you've ever met decided to be your friend? Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses. Okay, that part was a little weird. So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things - terrifying things - that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right? Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she's making cuts. Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unforgettable and unsettling friendship.

The Pallbearers' Club A Novel