Wiseman, Todd Alan. Cremation Vacation. Self Published, 2023.
Reason read: it is a long story why I read this story. Here is the whole thing from engine to caboose. My friend passed away a year ago October. Her daughter, who is also a really good friend (another long story), had her remains cremated. The daughter has yet to do anything with the ashes. Her initial thought was to honor her mother’s wishes and have her remains scattered somewhere on the Maine property that has been in the family for ages and ages. However, there are people renting the house on said property. You can’t exactly ask them to vacate the house for a few hours in order to have a memorial in the front yard. So, the ashes currently sit in Colorado. They have been there for over a year. On a recent call with the daughter I suggested spreading her mother’s ashes far and wide. Mom was a fearless traveler. She was a model in France, a part-time citizen of Mexico. She loved adventure. Why not make a vacation out of spreading her ashes? Go to Paris and Cozumel. Spend time in San Francisco and Washington D.C. Why the hell not? I had no idea Wiseman wrote a book about this exact same idea until a coworker presented me with the book. It was an Early Review for LibraryThing – one I did not request.
The premise of Cremation Vacation is clever if not a little predictable. In a nutshell: the brother of a scam artist passes away. The deceased leaved the scammer his business. However, to collect the rights to this business, he must spread his brother’s ashes across the world. Over the course of time the scammer learns to be a more sensitive human being. The end.
Confessional: I wish that Wiseman had partnered with someone to read the dialogue. Like reading a script, he could have seen how awkward some of the conversations turned out. For example, Trish. She repeats words frequently (died three times in a row, requirements three times in a row, trip six times in a row). She sounded robotic and fake.
Playlist: Billy Joel, “Phantom Three Oh Nine”, Amy Winehouse, Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive”, “Car Wash”, Lionel Ritchie’s “Truly”, Elvis Presley, Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”, Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart”, and Dean Martin’s “Aint That a Kick in the Head”.
~*LunaSea*~ 