Milo has lived many, many lives. And he remembers them all. Live a life as an investment banker, live the next as a water bug. So many, many lives. Takes a few to reach enlightenment. Some souls take time, some take a lot of time. Milo’s about at his life limit. Seems a soul can be canceled like a bad sitcom if it can’t get it right. We readers are Milo’s companions on his voyage backward and forward through time. And like the many past lives that haunt his present, cheering him on, and lamenting his failures, we watch our hero survive (and not survive) the trials and tribulations that those many, many lives encompass. We even get to experience a bit of the afterlife with him. Turns out our boy’s in love with Death, or to be more accurate, an incarnation of that concept, a lovely woman who prefers to be called Suzie. She’s been on hand through the millennia to guide him from one life to the next, but she grows weary of her existence and knows it’s time to move on … for them both. Reincarnation Blues is a fantastic look into the human condition told over ten thousand lifetimes. Highly enjoyable and recommended.
A wildly imaginative novel about a man who is reincarnated over ten thousand lifetimes to be with his one true love: Death herself.
“Tales of gods and men akin to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman as penned by a kindred spirit of Douglas Adams.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
First we live. Then we die. And then . . . we get another try?
Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything.
Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.
More than just Milo’s lover throughout his countless layovers in the Afterlife, Suzie is literally his reason for living—as he dives into one new existence after another, praying for the day he’ll never have to leave her side again.
But Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. As darkly enchanting as the works of Neil Gaiman and as wisely hilarious as Kurt Vonnegut’s, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking.
Because it’s more than Milo and Suzie’s story. It’s your story, too.
Praise for Reincarnation Blues
“The most fun you’ll have reading about a man who has been killed by both catapult and car accident.”—NPR
“This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life.”—Chicago Review of Books
“Charming . . . surprisingly light and uplifting . . . It reads like a writer having fun.”—New York Journal of Books
About the Author
Michael Poore’s short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Southern Review, Agni, Fiction, and Asimov’s. His story “The Street of the House of the Sun”was selected for The Year’s Best Nonrequired Reading 2012. His first novel, Up Jumps the Devil, was hailed by The New York Review of Books as “an elegiac masterpiece.” Poore lives in Highland, Indiana, with his wife, poet and activist Janine Harrison, and their daughter, Jianna.
Praise For…
“Tales of gods and men akin to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman as penned by a kindred spirit of Douglas Adams.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The most fun you’ll have reading about a man who has been killed by both catapult and car accident.”—NPR
“This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life.”—Chicago Review of Books
“Charming . . . surprisingly light and uplifting . . . It reads like a writer having fun.”—New York Journal of Books
