The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay
(Format used for this book: Audiobook)
What if the coolest girl you’ve ever met decided to be your friend?
Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a 17-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.
I can’t remember which friend of mine recommended this book to me, but I do remember it was quite awhile ago.
This is common place for me…putting a book on my TBR list, forgetting who told me to put it there, and then taking a thousand years to get around to reading it.
My TBR list is LOOOOONNNGGG, yall…and I have absolutely ZERO rhyme or reason for how I pick things from it. 🤣
Anyway…in keeping with my creepy/spooky vibes for the Halloween season, I figured this one would be a good fit.
This story was another nostalgia piece for me, with the setting taking place in the late 1980s.
Thumbs up right there for that piece of the book because I am ALL ABOUT that mess these days.
I guess this is what happens in middle age, yall….you enjoy looking back to your childhood/coming of age years in all aspects of your entertainment…movies, music, books.
(I remember my parents doing this EXACT thing ….sigh…I have arrived at FOR REAL adulthood, I guess. Oh the horror of it all😆 )
This story is told from two POVs…they are intertwined in quite the unique way and it was dope.
Another thumbs up over here as I almost ALWAYS love this style of fiction writing.
Also, in the audiobook version, there are two separate narrators, which is HELLA helpful to knowing which POV we are hearing when…it flip flops back and forth quite a bit during chapters, which would be obvious when you’re reading in print, but not so when you’re listening. Having two distinct, separate voices was SUPER.
Another thumbs up.
This story had an eerie/creepy/funny/weird/sad/different kinda vibe happening…you never can quite figure out WTF is *actually* going on…until the end which was both surprising and not surprising at the same time.
Another thumbs up over here.
BUT…..
Even with ALLLL these thumbs up this book has going for it, I still just feel kinda “blah” about it.
The story pace felt slow and dragging to me…and the whole “not really knowing” thing got a tad confusing at times, and not in a good way.
Some chapters I was super into…and others I was just trying to get thru.
My interest level definitely was on a roller coaster, with huge dips and turns….enough to make all those thumbs up kinda irrelevant I think.
Do I recommend this book?
Hmmm.
Yes and no?
Maybe?
I think the right answer is “I don’t know.”
Let me know if you do decide to partake…would love to know what you think!