Even to the more open-minded among us, it seems like a convoluted premise to say the least: Laura Byrd, a researcher for the Coca-Cola Company on a pseudo-scientific expedition in Antarctica , becomes the last person left on the planet after a pandemic sweeps across the globe. And in keeping herself alive, she sustains the existence of a city of the dead, whose inhabitants remain extant just so long as they are kept in the memory of a person on Earth. Futuristic novel gone awry? Authorial imagination gone bad? Surprisingly not. Instead, with the lightest of touches, Kevin Brockmeier gives his ambitious plot a satisfying coherence and shape. Emerging from it is a statement about life and the ultimate value of human connection.

Well, everyone's dead, but at least public transportation runs on schedule. For a group of people who manage to live without a heartbeat, there is conspicuously little existentialist angst—perhaps one of death's positive side effects. Indeed, death is the ultimate acceptance of life, and when given a second chance, the city's posthumous population seems to make the best of it. The city is not godless, for some still cling to their faith (specifically, Coleman Kinzler, who is perhaps Brockmeier's most interesting character), and yet a commonly held belief has taken the place of any other creation myth: "More and more people came to adopt the theory that it [the city] was an extension of life itself—a sort of outer room—and that they would remain there only so long as they endured in living memory." The saying "alive in memory" has been rendered literal.

But when the city's population suddenly nosedives and recently-arrived inhabitants disappear within hours, it becomes clear that something drastic is taking place in the realm of the living. This is the point at which Brockmeier's two plot threads intersect. Laura Byrd is stationed in Antarctica with two colleagues, Puckett and Joyce, sent by the Coca-Cola Company to research the potential use of polar water in soft drink production (the preposterous first in a series of jabs that constitutes Brockmeier's personal vendetta against the soda giant). Their remote location keeps them safe, at least temporarily, from exposure to the plague that is ravaging earth. When an antenna breaks and cannot be repaired, the team finds itself cut off from the outside world (which, unbeknownst to them, is all but gone anyhow). While Byrd's colleagues set out for help, Laura is left alone with her thoughts. She soon abandons the station as well, and in her journey across the ice, faces from the past return in the form of memory. Remembrance, in a sense, keeps her alive. Ironically, it keeps the city of the dead alive as well.

While Brockmeier's novel is set in the future, it at least partially serves as a commentary on the present. In these days of genetic engineering and bird flu fears, a worldwide pandemic is by no means the stuff of fancy. Toward book's end, we learn that the deadly strain was spread in bottles of Coke, and Brockmeier even inserts the proverbial white-collar criminal, who disposes of the damning evidence. While no reader should assume that his next sip of "the real thing" will be fatal, Brockmeier's concern with corporate corruption and lack of transparency is certainly in the vein of today's headlines. But The Brief History of the Dead is not meant to be a "sign of the times" book. Rather, it's most significant statement is about life in general—and what substantiates it. It is the value of human connectedness that Brockmeier makes into metaphor with his memory-created city. Just as faces from the past flicker across Laura's consciousness and Puckett tries to list all the people he can remember, so too is the reader asked to consider his placement in the world's web of associations. Meaning in life is not solipsistic. With her community of memory, Laura does not die alone.

Brockmeier does make a few missteps. The story surrounding the disease's soda source overextends our willingness to suspend disbelief. And the unfortunate penultimate chapter sees the author overstraining his imagination in an attempt to be surreal. However, the plot is refreshingly experimental, and it provides a successful stage for the author's look at mortality and humanity. The residents of the city hear Laura's heart as it pumps out its final beats. With its cessation, the dead will die again, for the only heartbeat they had was the heartbeat of memory.

Richard Solash is an English concentrator and a member of the class of 2007. He recommends Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal.