Casey’s Reviews
His Death Was Their Beginning
A Review of Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
“Welcome to Charon’s Crossing. / The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.”
I really loved House on the Cerulean Sea, and TJ Klune does it again with Under the Whispering Door. Writing a story where the protagonist dies in the first chapter could’ve been a challenge, but he pulls it off. Answering the question “What happens when you die?”, Klune introduces a world of Reapers, Ferrymen, the all-knowing Manager, and the spirits of those who refuse to leave that will keep you turning pages.
A story about death doesn’t have to be depressing. Klune handles a lot of Big Topics (from sudden death, illness, murder, and even suicide to just having regrets about the way you used your time on earth) with his signature humour, humility, and clarity. It also takes a lot of guts to write a really unlikeable protagonist, but Klune pulls it off.
Basically, it takes dying for Wallace Price to find a shred of humanity. Despite being a big-shot lawyer with money, nice suits, and a bitter ex-wife, Wallace wasn’t living “his best life” when he keeled over from a heart attack at the office. He was, in fact, a deeply unpleasant person, whose misanthropic annoyance with…
