WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Heather McBriarty, The Miramichi Reader (2022)

“What do you get when a narcissistic megalomaniac plagued by daddy issues leads a horde of angry zealots, xenophobes, and ornery incels on a crusade to Make the Afterlife Great Again”? So reads the jacket blurb on Randal Graham’s latest installment of the Beforelife Series, Nether Regions. And what you get is a hilariously thought-provoking romp of a book in the finest tradition of Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett … Having not read (or known there were) two previous titles in this series (IPPY gold medal winner Beforelife and Afterlife Crisis), it took me a chapter or two to figure out the immense cast of characters that people this novel. But I soon got oriented – as best as one can get oriented to the chaos unleashed – to this metafictional and satirical twist on the politics and social upheaval of the last few years. Graham draws from both today’s headlines and ancient myths to create a world like no other, and never hesitates to ask huge philosophical questions in the most outlandish of settings. Biting, witty and whip smart, this is not an “easy” read; there are just too many layers and characters to ever let your guard down and relax. However, it does grip the reader by the seat of the pants and never lets go until the final page. The best compliment I can think of? I cannot wait to get my hands on the first two books in the series!

Foreword Reviews (Foreword Magazine Inc): Afterlife Crisis, 2020

In Randal Graham’s raucous, wry, and philosophical sequel to Beforelife, the divine Author’s intrepid hero, Rhinnick Feynman, returns, determined as ever to prove his centrality to the story of all.

Those who meet their ends on Earth are pulled from the river Styx and welcomed into immortality, set in a sprawling metropolis called Detroit. They exist among personalities like church/cult leader Norm Stradamus, a number of Napoleons, hotel bellboy William Shakespeare, a crispy but reconstituted medium, and first resident Abe L.

Also in Detroit: rumors of life before the Styx are considered a delusion. But Feynman, who otherwise could be mistaken for a rather average fellow, recalls his beforelife, an error for which he’s been relegated to hospice care several times before—not that anyone seems to remember that. Charged by Abe with a mission to keep Detroit safe, Feynman carries a loyal hamster in his pocket, refers to lauded genius Isaac Newton as an “arithmetic poop,” and becomes entangled in multiple engagements by accident. Detroit’s history shifts around him, but only he seems to notice. He is slow to see what harm there could be in Isaac toying with reality at a quantum level.

Feynman’s narration—which is indelicate, touched by good-humored egomania, and prone to malapropisms—smothers its entranced, sometimes captive, readership in its loquacious embrace. Beyond his musings lies a rich metaphysical and scientific milieu, in which theories of multiple worlds, the nature of existence, and the impermanence of truth combine. As his quest continues, Feynman encounters decamillennials on ice, complications with television, and a plot to reprogram the past; he comes to the realization that only one empowered by the Author can save Detroit.

Filled with wordplay to die for, Randal Graham’s latest dizzying, irresistible life-after-death satire tackles perennial existential questions with humor and hunger.”

Corey Redekop, Author of Shelf Monkey and Husk

On Beforelife (2017):

“Finally, a hitchhiker’s guide to the hereafter. Making a debut as stellar as it is hilarious, Randal Graham proves himself a true Canuckian heir to the magnificently pun-happy merriment of literary pranksters Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Jasper Fforde. At once a raucous comedy, thrilling adventure, and meta-commentary on the nature of storytelling, Beforelife is an afterlife to die for.”

On Afterlife Crisis (2020):

“Like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and Douglas Adams’ entire Galaxy, the post-death realm of Randal Graham’s Detroit is a zany mélange of puns, incisive social commentary, dry wit, and more plot twists than you can reasonably waggle your stick at. I don’t claim to know what will happen after my expiration date, but considering how terrible real life is of late, I dearly hope my afterlife will be as enjoyable as Detroit.”

Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour (on Afterlife Crisis, 2020)

“Randal Graham has written an inventive and hilarious tale packed with such witty prose that P.G. Wodehouse is surely applauding from his own afterlife. Strap in for a wild and funny ride.”

Publisher’s Weekly Review of Afterlife Crisis (2020)

“Graham returns to the world of Beforelife for another comic adventure, this time turning the focus onto chatty, well-meaning, and self-absorbed Rhinnick Feynman. Rhinnick has been hired by the mayor of the Afterlife, an alternate version of Detroit, to investigate Isaac Newton, whom the mayor believes to be up to something nefarious. The job quickly snowballs into a mayhem-filled mission to stop Newton from altering history forever. Complicating matters is Rhinnick’s belief that he is a character in a book, at the mercy of a mysterious Author’s whims. The screwball plot sees Rhinnick searching for Zeus, convincing a psychiatrist at the Detroit Mercy Hospice to release the patients, and desperately trying to avoid getting married. It’s jumbled, brisk, and not particularly concerned with making sense. Rhinnick himself is a comic figure in the vein of P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, and the story relies on his charm to succeed. Some readers may be frustrated by the convoluted action, but fans of wacky doings and zippy dialogue are sure to be entertained.”

Bob Rae, 21st Premier of Ontario and author of From Protest to Power (on Afterlife Crisis, 2020):

“When I worked with Randal Graham at the Goodmans law firm he showed few signs of zaniness, let alone P.G. Wodehouse on steroids. But zounds he shows all of the above and more in the story of Rhinnick and Vera. We are all the better for The Other Side of Randal.”

Nikki Stafford (Author of “Bite Me” and “Finding Lost”) on Beforelife, 2017

“One of my all-time favourite books!”

Professor Christopher Nicholls, “Time, Talent, Treasure and Television” 61 Canadian Business Law Journal, 129 (2018)

“It is highly unusual for a work of fiction to be reviewed in the Canadian Business Law Journal. It may well be unprecedented, in fact. But then again, this is a highly unusual work of fiction. On one level it is sheer entertainment, and can be enjoyed entirely on that level as a kind of elaborate comic verbal playground. But for those attentive readers who share, with Graham, an interest in the central questions addressed by economics, a further reward awaits. When such readers have finished the book, they will come to realize that, beneath the (considerable) laughter, they have been treated to an illuminating meditation on the first principles of economic reasoning, and, by implication, an explication of the unstated (ostensibly self-evident) assumptions that underlie the models used by economists to provide simplified, tractable near-versions of complex real-world phenomena. It is very likely that this particular exploration can only be undertaken through an elaborate work of speculative fiction. (Could Plato, after all, have fully expressed his theory of forms without the allegory of the Cave? Could Adam Smith have comprehensively explained his theory of division of labour and specialisation without recourse to his imaginary pin factory?) 

Of course, Graham’s work is a far cry from Plato and Adam Smith. Among other things, one need not be coy or evasive when discussing the philosophical or economic elements of Plato or Smith — as one must be in writing about Graham’s book — for fear of utterly destroying a prospective reader’s experience by revealing a pivotal plot point. But Graham’s book does, in some critical respects, exemplify the beneficial relationship between the arts and economics which is explicated and celebrated by Desai. To be sure, this relationship will not be immediately obvious to the casual reader. In fact, there is simply no easy way to describe the style of this book. It has elements of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Kurt Vonnegut, and J.K. Rowling with some thematic debts to many others, including James Joyce and even New Thought self-actualizing author Napoleon Hill. It is part satire, part magic realism, part meta-fiction, but wholly entertaining. It is also surely unique in its capacity to sustain and artfully unfold a page-turning puzzle through 44 chapters and an epilogue without sacrificing even a syllable of verbal comic virtuosity.”

Shannon McMaster, Author, Grumble Flap (Reviewing Beforelife, 2017)

“This is the most amusing, though-provoking, heart-rending, funny, original, odd novel I’ve read in a long, long time. The people of “Detroit” regard the beforelife as a serious taboo. Ian can’t shake it, though. I raced through this book, and laughed and laughed.”

Dan Moore, Author, “Letters to a New Developer,” review of Beforelife (2018)

“I really enjoyed Beforelife. It’s a whimsical stroll through a fantasy land that exists after death.  The main character, Ian, arrives in the afterlife with an unusual trait: perfect recollection of his life before death.  This leads him to be institutionalized, where he meets some madcap associates, including multiple people who think they are Napoleon and someone who thinks he was a dog.

The rest of the book is all about how this group helps Ian discover what’s special about him.

I enjoyed the plot twists, which I won’t outline because spoilers.  There are several other historical characters, some named (Socrates, Isaac Newton), others hinted at.  I also enjoyed the world construction.  The world after death is populated by immortals, with interesting ramifications for areas of study like science and social constructs like policing.

If you’re looking for a light hearted jaunt and you liked Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, you’ll enjoy Beforelife.”

AudioFile Magazine review of Afterlife Crisis (audiobook), 2020

“Raoul Bhaneja is a spirited narrator for this wacky, imaginative story. He becomes Rhinnick Feynman, a man trapped in the afterlife who can sense that something is going seriously wrong. Bhaneja makes the most of the arch tone of this playful novel, which places the underworld in a futuristic Detroit. He uses a variety of accents and vocal personas to help listeners distinguish the myriad characters. Listeners might find themselves laughing out loud at the implausible twists and turns that feature unexpected cameos by everyone from Egyptian pharaohs to Jack the Ripper. We get the sense Bhaneja is having as much fun as we are with this story of a unique attempt to save the world. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2020]

Annie, Curator of “A Bookish Type”, Review of Afterlife Crisis (2020)

“There is a developing genre called the New Weird, marked by strange civilizations, hallucinatory writing, and a general feeling of “what the hell did I just read?” Randal Graham’s Afterlife Crisis is weird, even if it’s not New Weird. I don’t have a genre label for the kinds of fiction that Graham, Tom Holt, and a scant handful of others write. Graham’s novel, like others in this as yet unnamed genre, is marked by hilariously erudite verbosity; references to literature, myth, science, art, history, psychology, and all the rest of the library; and a determined willingness to play with the laws of reality. I adore these novels. Their loopy wordiness is a pure delight for my bookish soul.

Afterlife Crisis is the sequel to Beforelife, which I have not read. Given how forgetfulness is a running them in Afterlife Crisis and its general weirdness, I wouldn’t say that reading Beforelife is an absolute necessity. I was able to get along just fine. That said, I want more of Graham’s bizarre version of the afterlife and definitely plan to read Beforelife.

Afterlife Crisis follows the adventures of Rhinnick Feynman as he gets wrapped up in other people’s adventures to change Detroit, an afterlife full of people who think that the beforelife is a mental illness and where teleportation is possible. At least, it was possible. Rhinnick Feynman is part way through his search for Isaac Newton at the behest of Abe, the god of Detroit—see what I mean about weirdness?—when the teleportation system suddenly disappears and he has to take a bus to the university. This is probably the most comprehensible part of the plot. It just gets goofier from there.

Rhinnick’s internal monologue made it easy to be a passenger in Detroit. He talks like a post-corporeal Bertie Wooster and I couldn’t get enough of it. Graham’s writing is pitch-perfect Wodehouse. Even though the story twisted and turned all over the place, I was often laughing at Rhinnick’s phrasing. I also loved his (after)world view. Rhinnick firmly believes that the reality all the characters find themselves in is a story written by a great Author who occasionally revises as they go. This belief gives Rhinnick a very laissez faire attitude to things, which also helped the oddities go down more easily.

I really enjoyed this book. I strongly recommend it for readers who also love the gentler side of Weird, especially when it comes with a couple of thesauri worth of words.”