New York: Harcourt, Inc., (2004) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - Award-winning author's very unusual second book - "Raised in Kansas by a family of dead people, the protagonist of this blackly humorous, cerebral novel relies on philosophy to make sense of her odd predicament. Oz's mother died in childbirth - 10 years before Oz was conceived. Her sister died as a young child. Only her father remained, hovering between life and death until she was 10 years old. In Oz's experience, dead people move through the world looking and acting much the same as live people but lacking human emotions. The present action of the novel unfolds as the adult Oz oversees the exhumation of the grave of Winfield Evan Stark, the man who saved her from her life among the dead and whose body might be missing. While she waits for the gravediggers to do their work, Oz recounts for the reader her struggles to learn to feel and to deal with the consequences of her feelings. The story works best on a metaphorical level with understated humor deriving from ironic double meanings: 'There are, you see, more corpses in academia than anywhere else you might name.' .. A story presented with straight-faced candor, informed by a philosopher's grasp of logic (both the author and narrator are trained philosophers)." (Kirkus) Cover praise from Barry Gifford, Steve Yarbrough and others. INSCRIBED on the title page. 319 pp. ISBN: 0-151010153.