Marcus Conway

Marcus Conway's ghost tells his story in first-person, retrospective narration. Sitting at his kitchen table, Conway's ghost remembers the different seasons of his life, from his courtship with Mairead to the birth of his children until his own death. For most of the narration, Conway does not realize that he is a ghost, adding a level of irony to the novel. The reader recognizes that Conway is dead (both from the book's premise and from the date of Conway's narration, All Souls' Day). Conway only comes to this realization in the book's final section, at which he point, he decides to "keep going to fuck," continuing his journey in the next life (217).

Throughout his life, Conway is a "man and boy, father and son, husband and engineer," (215). Through his relationship with his father, Conway considers the burden of inheriting one's tradition from one's family: Conway is like...