On “Rubbernecking” by Leah Thomas (2513 words) ****

Years ago I read a book about a family of dead people written by someone who had once been in a writing group with me. It's a hard gimmick to pull off, and for the first half of that novel, she did so. Thomas here works the same kind of magic. This time, it's just one dead person, and for a while, we're not sure if she's pulling an "I see dead people" shtick reminiscent of The Sixth Sense or if there's something else going on. The dead boy here could stand in for all kinds of things--survivor guilt, perhaps chief among them. Read the story here at Ideomancer.