The Funeral Portrait by Vincent Viñas
Guy doesn’t smile easily. He could be described as fundamentally glum.
Tallulah doesn’t die easily. She could be described as annoyingly immortal.
What if you wanted to die but were unable to? Such is the case with Guy Edwards and Tallulah Leigh, who want to end their miserable lives for different reasons. The only problem is, she’s been stricken with an unexplained (and unwelcome) case of immortality while he lacks that final, sorrowful piece of inspiration he needs to effectively do himself in.
Genre: Dark Humour
Pages: 270 pages
Publisher: Ink Smith Publishing
What better way to solve this dilemma than to help kill each other. However, a bigger problem has emerged–one of them is falling in love with the other. They’ll now have to decide what is a more frightening option–dying or taking one last shot at happiness? The Funeral Portrait is a very dark and comedic (but often horrific) tale about two lost souls who find each other and soon realize the only thing that may be worse than death is commitment.
My Review
I’m still gobsmacked after reading this. It’s not like anything I’ve ever read before (not even Will Carver’s Suicide Thursday). It’s even darker and while there is a lot of humour, I sometimes struggled to find anything funny.
Guy Edwards is annoyingly miserable. His girlfriend of five months, Constance, packed him in and he still can’t get over her, even to the point of stalking her at work. He’s suffering from clinical depression, though I’m not sure he really is. All he wants to do is throw himself off the roof of the glass works factory. And find an excuse not to, and write about it to his parents and brother Bruno in letters. The book is written like a journal. I’m not going to judge, because I can’t pretend to understand him. And then he meets Tallulah Leigh, who can’t die, no matter how hard she tries to end it.
Guy works at a funeral home, where he prepares the bodies and we get a graphic description at one point of what that entails, mainly the embalming for open coffin viewings. He seems to enjoy his job (if you can enjoy cleaning blood, and sewing up and stuffing dead people), as far as he enjoys anything at all. I’m a glass half full kind of person, so Guy’s totally empty glass outlook on life can grate. Old Mr Friar, the peach seller, has the answers.
At one point, the letters are written by others including Tallulah, Bruno, even Constance, and Guy’s psychiatrist. These were all very interesting, especially Tallulah, whose early life was devastatingly sad and you can understand why she wants Guy to help her die. Though I would prefer to see that there is always hope.
Bruno keeps lots of animals as pets (I get that), but he also keeps throwing pies in Guy’s face. If there is something deep and meaningful about that, I didn’t get it.
Did I like Guy – not so much – but I adored Tallulah. She’s funny, warm and exciting. I just wish she could have found a way back from all the trauma.
I don’t know what else to write. It’s easy to think that Guy’s life is not that bad, no abusive childhood, bullying or rapes, so he needs to be thankful, stop feeling sorry for himself, and move on (like Bruno keeps telling him to). But that’s easy for us to say, when it’s not us going through it. Tallulah’s life on the other hand, has been so traumatic that she can’t cope any longer. I cried for her, I really did.
PS As an aside, there is a very well-known book/film called Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. It was loved by many, but also criticised for treating disabled people as those with no hope or future. Critics worried that it would impact children who felt that being disabled made life not worth living. The ending was the worst. This kept popping into my head while reading The Funeral Portrait because Tallulah’s extreme PTSD is a form of disability and asking Guy to help her kill herself becomes the only way out. It’s very upsetting.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of #TheFuneralPortrait blog tour.
About the Author
Born and raised in New York City, Vincent Viñas, has been forcing friends and family to read his writing for years. He did the same thing with his short films and whenever his old band played a show. His collaborative film efforts had the honor of bewildering unsuspecting theater-goers before midnight screenings of the cult classic, Donnie Darko. As a musician, Vincent was lucky enough to take the stage at the famed CBGB’s and considered trashing his drum set to spice things up. However, the drummer in the previous band trashed his drums during their performance and having two consecutive drummers behave in such a manner is just silly.
A short story Vincent wrote once earned him a cheese and wine movie party at Sony’s private screening room for him and fifty friends, which Sony executives no doubt regretted as free alcohol and bad movies don’t make for a civilized theater experience.
Some of his many influences include Stephen King, Rod Serling, George A. Romero, Chuck Palahniuk, Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Moore, Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Alfred Hitchcock.
He currently lives in the mystical realm of New York with his wife, Megan, and their small cat who thinks she’s in charge.
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