SOURCE: Balée, Susan. “Maximalist Fiction.” Hudson Review 53, no. 3 (autumn 2000): 513–20.

In the following excerpt, Balée offers a positive assessment of Being Dead.

The novel, like the rest of America, has put on weight.

A good thing, I think, for the former. The best books of the last year were meaty, sensory-soaked reads. Full-bodied characters rose up from the page, multiple plots shouldered each other for chapter space, and history—almost all the best books of the last year were historical novels—provided a feast of curious facts for discriminating readers to chew on and digest. Unfortunately, one of the most disappointing books of the year, from my point of view, also happened to be a historical novel. …

… [Jim Crace's] latest, Being Dead, is a tour-de-force of originality. Crace bowled me over by scrutinizing mortality from a perspective we rarely consider—not, at least, since high school when...