The Comic Muse
The Comic Muse Podcast
Today is Kate Montclair's Deathday
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Today is Kate Montclair's Deathday

"All Souls' Day was not for the saints in Heaven but for the souls in Purgatory, the ones who didn't quite make the A-team. That was me, certainly."

Kate Montclair has always wished to die looking out over her Morning Mountain. And with the help of her friend, Adele Schraeder, she has chosen her birthday, November 2nd, All Souls’ Day, for her “deathday.”

Kate Montclair, you see, suffering from inoperable brain cancer, has decided to take her own life.

In this passage from my novel, The Good Death of Kate Montclair, come along with Kate as she makes her fateful decision:

In Catholic school, I had learned that November 2 was All Souls’ Day, but I hadn’t retained anything more than the title. Recently, I had looked it up on Wikipedia. All Souls’ Day was also known as the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed as well as the Day of the Dead. All Saints’ Day was the day before, November 1, anticipated by All Hallows’ Eve. All Souls’ Day was not for the saints in Heaven but for the souls in Purgatory, the ones who didn’t quite make the A-team. That was me, certainly….

Listen to the rest of the passage by pressing “Play” just above.


“Just finished this one. Wow! A book of redemption in the modern world. The author employs his prodigious talents to interweave the past and present lives of his characters so that the reader is entirely caught up in the web of their stories, waiting for the next revelation. He presents the confusing, messy, sad, happy, frustrating, contradictory events of their lives, particularly Kate’s, which come together in a whirlwind, unputdownable ending that makes redemptive sense. The only criticism I have is that [SPOILER ALERT] Kate dies in the end.”


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The Comic Muse
The Comic Muse Podcast
THE COMIC MUSE PODCAST features the fiction, drama, and humorous writing of Daniel McInerny, author of the novel, THE GOOD DEATH OF KATE MONTCLAIR.
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