So Vicious It’s Delicious

The opening scene of Joan Barfoot’s latest novel, Luck, could very easily be an opening scene from the (now departed) television series Six Feet Under. Not only is it highly cinematic, but it is exactly how each episode of that series began, with a death, a death that would sooner rather than later require a funeral, a funeral that is both the structure of the drama and the device through which we learn more about the living, who are always of far greater interest than the more or less lamented deceased.

But the resemblance between Luck and Six Feet Under is even deeper, or, if one finds satire, cynicism and a touch of the burlesque about death shocking and inappropriate, more shallow. Barfoot’s tone is exactly that of the television series. From a different perspective, that of the mourners rather than the funeral home—although a funeral home and its owner are also significant here—she explores the impact of death, the minutiae...