Mortal Weather: A Novel
After enduring the loss of his wife and surviving a near fatal accident at work, Stanhope Ellis decides he' s ready for a change of scenery. Unfortunately, the people he meets in his new locale are dropping like flies, and he might be the reason.
As he struggles with whether he' s Death Man or a cosmic witness, he meets a wise nurse, Gayathri Das, who helps him navigate the emotional minefield. But will she die, like the others?
Fondness for each of the characters is easy to come by, which is a hazard in a story where death comes calling so often. Each character' s tale is filled with glimpses of ourselves and everyone we' ve ever loved, compelling the reader to hear them out, maybe for the last time. It' s a dizzying entanglement of friendship, grief, and perseverance from which there is no rush to be free. At once comforting and urgent, this book will fill your cup, break your heart, and put it back together, winking all the way.
A brilliant and memorable debut novel, Mortal Weather is an existential adventure — a timely, joyous examination of life and death with an against-all-odds love story at its core. The recurring themes read as a mystery, the characters are alive and memorable, and the writing is fluid and engaging. Here are all of our voices, asking all of our questions about the essence of life in trying times.
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About the Author
Among other things, Kevin Patrick “Captain Coherence” McCarthy has been a geothermal geologist, technical writer, and screenwriter. For six years, he ran a critique service and published a quarterly review: Capsule Review of Original Work (CROW).
His published work includes two nonfiction books, about 35 poems, and more than 40 essays. It has been featured by many orgs and pubs, including Bridport, New Millennium, Common Ground, Writers Resist, The Chicago Tribune, The Mountain Gazette, and The Bloomsbury Review. “Porterhouse Jive” won a Vonnegut parody contest in 2007. Spirit Rocks won a Silver REMI Award for dramatic screenplay at the 2008 Houston International Film Festival. Mortal Weather was a semifinalist in the 2020 University of New Orleans Press Lab competition. “Enough Sky,” the epigraph for Mortal Weather, was Commended by The Poetry Society (UK) in 2014.
Kevin is a fourth-generation Coloradan who explores the world with wife, Tricia, and dog, Nani.