If you're looking out for it, death is hidden everywhere in books. Even in works that don't feature a grandiloquent deathbed scene, even in some beloved children's books—you can't escape it. (Babar begins with a murder, and the Winnie-the-Pooh books feel like mortality is always crouching somewhere in wait.) And that's one of the main problems with The Inevitable, a new essay anthology coedited by local author David Shields: It's a book drenched in death, from the first page to the last. But, really, aren't they all?
In the subtitle, Contemporary Writers Confront Death, The Inevitable literally promises a confrontation with the grim reaper. You can't get much more bold than that; it's practically a myth already...
(Keep reading.)
