Death With Interruptions

Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago is a strange and difficult little book. Set in a small Catholic land locked fictional country, death decides to stop killing at the first of the year. Locals celebrate at first, but after a few months weary of the growing number of sick, elderly and injured who can not die. Death is a possibility in other countries, so some take their forever-dying relatives across the border (often with the aid of the maphia). The first half of this book is about how the government, maphia, church and royal family all react to the interruption in dying.
Written without paragraphs (even the dialogue) the first half is both boring and difficult. We don't meet death until the second half, and by then the no paragraphs gets easier and the subject matter suddenly more interesting with the focus on the one character. Death decides to start killing again, but gives people one week notice, until she meets a cellist who simply won't die.
I would have a pretty hard time recommending this book to most people. I am glad I finished it, but it is work. Even though I don't mind a challenge, I found this more work than necessary for a pleasure read.

"Death With Interruptions also has a surprise for a title character; death is nicely conceived by Saramago as a spiteful female shape-shifter who takes a shine to a cellist she can’t seem to finish off. But here as in his other recent books, there is an airlessness to Saramago’s writing. One senses that the author, a lifelong critic of capitalism, is mostly interested in pricking the modern state. Critique muscles out character. The book’s humor is thin. We make up stories at bedtime because we love our children; likewise the novelist has to want the readers he or she has. With Saramago, the rustling sound is the feeling he’s pushing us away." -- NY Times Book Review