The most original debut we’ve read this year, Dead Lucky by Connor Hutchinson tells the story of twenty-something Jamie, a funeral embalmer leading a chaotic double life in a Manchester suburb. Although dedicated to his job and in love with his fabulous girlfriend, Rebecca, Jamie is harbouring a secret which threatens to capsize his life. Addicted to gambling, on the edge of financial ruin and under pressure from Rebecca to purchase their first home together, Jamie needs to pull off a major win. By turns darkly funny and affecting, Dead Lucky invites us into the mind of a young man, who unable to share his troubles with those who love him, tells them to the corpses on his embalming table instead.
Having remained in Openshaw, the town of his birth, it’s inevitable that one day Jamie will find someone on his embalming table that he knows. In this case, it’s Paula, his old school dinner lady. The story opens with Jamie talking us through the embalming process (fascinating if somewhat gruesome), as Paula heads towards a 900-degree oven. He knows some people find it an ‘oddball’ job but he’s content, running the funeral home with his boss and mentor, Janice, who’s been like a second mum to him and plays a pivotal role in a rollercoaster plot.
‘I got used to having ash in my nostrils, the thrum of the cremation machines. I raked bones with the calmness of a gardener in the autumn, collecting the red embers like fallen leaves.’
One Monday morning, the local hospital sends in the dead body of a woman, the sight of whom prompts certain memories and reflections in Jamie. Each successive corpse is set to lend a (deaf) ear as Jamie feels compelled to pore out his life story and the issues that have led to him teetering on the edge of breakdown.
Hutchinson’s gritty, often droll tale of addiction, men’s mental health and the pain passed down through families, has appeared on recent literary prize lists and been a BBC Radio Two Book Club pick. He cleverly combines two such seemingly disparate subjects as gambling addiction and funeral homes, using Jamie’s embalming room monologues to reveal a family history of addiction and a burden of shame.
Jamie’s long-time friends mean a lot to him but there’s no room for deep and meaningful conversations over the snooker table on pub nights. As for his life with Rebecca, they’re currently living in a mouldy flat over a kebab shop. She deserves so much more. And what she has is a duplicitous partner who has been lured by the dazzle of the casino, sneaks off to the betting shop every day and uses mobile betting apps inbetween his embalming duties. The New House Fund jar that sits on the mantelpiece contains nothing but a couple of limp banknotes.
In desperation, Jamie calls to mind the words of his late father (no surprise, also a compulsive gambler), ‘Sometimes you have to play dirty. So, unfortunately, that’s what I’m going to have to do’.
The consequences are monumental in Hutchinson’s inspired and memorable debut.
Dead Lucky by Connor Hutchinson is published by Corsair, 304 pages.
