The City is not unlike those on earth: it has parks and streets, stores and restaurants, garbage and homelessness --- all of the pleasures and problems of modern life. This City, however, is inhabited by the recently departed, who reside there only as long as they remain in the memories of the living. Among the current residents of this afterlife are Luka Sims, who prints the only newspaper in the City, with news from the other side; Coleman Kinzler, a vagrant who speaks the cautionary words of God; and Marion and Phillip Byrd, who find themselves falling in love again after decades of marriage.

On earth, Laura Byrd is trapped by extreme weather in an Antartic research station. She's alone and unable to contact the outside world: her radio is down and the power is failing. She's running out of supplies as quickly as she's running out of time.

Kevin Brockmeier interweaves these two stories in a spellbinding tale of human connection, self-preservation, and the future of mankind. The Brief History of the Dead is the work of a remarkably gifted writer.