Len Joy. Everyone Dies Famous. BQB, 2020.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
                                       John Donne, Meditation 17

Everyone Dies Famous gets its title from an observation by one of its characters:

“This is a small town, Dancer. Everyone dies famous here.” (37)

So, yes, the story is basically a sketch of one day in the life of Maple Springs, Missouri, a small town in the foothills of the Ozarks. No one apparently dies in the story, but many of the characters are dealing with the deaths of people in the past. (I have to write “apparently” because of the element of possible magical realism symbolizing dying.)

Dancer Stonemason, 70, is still grieving over the death of his son Clayton. It is not entirely clear how Clayton died, but he was actually giving his father a new lease on life by getting him to help with his business of restoring and selling old jukeboxes. Now his other son, Jim, is selling Clayton’s property and seems to want to sell the business, too. Dancer, who wasted too much of his life seems to be losing the positive gains he has recently made.

Jim in his own way is also trying to come to terms with his brother’s death. But Jim has other concerns at the moment. His daughter and only child is getting married tomorrow, so everyone is planning for the big day. Jim operates a successful car dealership, and his best salesperson is his daughter Kayla. He has plans for opening a new dealership in town with Kayla as manager. But so many talented people leave town for better opportunities elsewhere. Will she stay?

We note that the dealership he wants to start is a Saturn dealer. Saturn cars were an interesting experiment on the part of General Motors, but we all know by 2020 that Saturns never caught on with most people.

Dancer himself almost made it to the major leagues. He is remembered in town for pitching a perfect game for the local minor league team. But after he found out about his wife’s affair (more on that later), it all went south.

We meet Wayne Mesirow, recently returned from a National Guard tour in Iraq. He also is dealing with loss. His wife, Anita, is divorcing him. He thinks her friend Trudy is behind it, but Anita has been going out with Ted Landis, much older but probably the richest man in town. He has already developed a shopping mall and is looking to turn Maple Springs into a casino resort.

Wayne, though, is also dealing with the loss of the guy who became his best friend in the service, Sonny Patel. Sonny’s father runs the local electronics store and is known as Madman Patel in his advertisements. Sonny did not die in combat but in a freak drowning accident in the Tigris River.

In the background on this day, July 18, 2003, are storm warnings. This becomes symbolic because it seems like everyone is headed into some kind of storm. There are the two free spirited ladies who refuse to sell their property to developer Landis. Landis himself is planning a big party on his casino steamboat featuring the Confederate Pirates, rock band that Wayne was on the verge of joining when he was called up by the Guard.

There is Madame Zelda, a young woman who is a tattoo artist and fortune teller. Jim’s wife Paula, a nurse, works for a doctor who is trying to get Jim to lose weight. Ted Landis has memories of his first wife who had an affair with Dancer’s wife, Dede. Dede would return, more or less, to Dancer, but Ted’s wife left Maple Springs for New Mexico and was never heard from again. Oh, and Anita’s friend Trudy had been engaged at one point to Clayton.

And we cannot forget Russell and Ozzie, the dogs.

Everyone Dies Famous is both tender and harsh. It also shows how perhaps times have changed. For example, Wayne discovers from Sonny’s family that Sonny was gay. Wayne had no idea. Now he begins to wonder whether he is gay because he was friends with a gay man in spite of being married and a father to two children. Back in the seventies if something similar happened, a seventies Wayne would have probably accepted who Sonny was, but would not have been tempted to think himself as being gay.

It seems like the reader almost needs to keep a family tree. Still, with affairs and drama in the past and big events and a tornado on the horizon, there is a lot of action. The small town drama and people looking for second chances reminded this reader of Empire Falls. The man vs. nature conflict from the storm had echoes of Sometimes a Great Notion. Dancer’s courage in a storm for what seems trivial reason suggests the climax of Giants in the Earth.

But the overall theme, emphasized in the final image of the story (which may or may not be magical realism) is John Donne’s famous observation: “No man is an island.” Oh, how we all affect so many people, even if all we are doing is taking a dog for a walk.

N.B. This is a novel with adult situations and some profane language. While not in the least pornographic, it would be rated R if it were a film.