The Pallbearers Club

A Novel

By: Paul Tremblay

Narrated by: Graham Halstead, Xe Sands, Elizabeth Wiley

Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

A cleverly voiced psychological thriller about an unforgettable—and unsettling—friendship, with blood-chilling twists, crackling wit, and a thrumming pulse in its veins—from the nationally best-selling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song.

What if the coolest girl you’ve ever met decided to be your friend?

Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a 17-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers’ Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses.

Okay, that part was a little weird.

So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things–terrifying things–that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right?

Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers’ Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she’s making cuts.

Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers’ Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unforgettable and unsettling friendship.

©2022 Paul Tremblay (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Good book, but not a thriller

The way this book has been promoted did the story itself dirty. It isn't especially thrilling or suspenseful. Predictable, in fact. I don't think I would have been as disappointed with this book had it been billed as dark fiction. That's not to say it isn't horror-- or very much on brand for Tremblay. But I was carried through this book by inertia, not suspense.

I was intrigued

I couldn't stop listening. However, I never knew where the story was going. The twist at the end was good, but still left too many unanswered questions. Overall a well written story.

Sad to say I didn’t like it🫤

I really wanted to like this book. It started out good and I was so excited. But then it kept going about what I thought was A LOT of unnecessary stuff. I was hoping and thinking it was almost over but I looked and there was still over 3 hours left! The ending was good but it took forever to get there. I will still read Mr. Tremblay’s works but I may be more careful as to what I choose.

Not So Good

The story is boring and drags. Didn't really care what happened to any of the characters. Liked other books from this author this one just didn't work.

Huh

Wooof, what a bad read for an author who wrote Head Full of Ghosts. Oddly weird and it doesn’t have a plot. Throw a real vampire in there just for fun, not a man-child who thinks that their might be one in the real world, so he attacks his high school bully….

Vampirically surprised

Let's start with the positive. I LOVE a vampire. I had NO idea that this was a vampire novel. This was a very pleasant surprise for me. Not that it needed to be a surprise, I feel like a cursory browse of the tags for this book would have clued me in. But this was simply a book club pick, so I borrowed it from the library and got to it.

I love a mockumentary, and I love footnotes! This has both. But....I didn't like this. That's not entirely accurate. I DID like Mercy/Mary's editing/annotating/footnotes. They did help to sow confusion and distrust between me, the reader, and Art, the writer. But this felt...forced, I guess.

This kind of felt like he really wanted to write an ode to pop culture and literary allusion, but also wanted to make sure we knew that he "wasn't taking himself seriously." Which, ultimately, made it feel like he's taking himself way too seriously and also not owning it. Maybe it's more on the nose than I took it, but *shrug*.

I will say, other than the surprise vampire reveal, the not surprise vampire ending was my favorite part.

Intriguing concept but ultimately unfulfilled

I read a lot of books and short stories, spanning various genres and subjects. The opening of this book is engaging and the style of narration is unique. That’s really about it. The story is weak and reads as if it doesn’t know if it wants to be a character study or a suspense novel (memoir) - those who read it will get that. The plot is weak and redundant and most of the characters are quite static.

Not sure why I finished

I almost left this book unfinished. The narration was good and and it worked well with the story. I just could not get into this story. I spent most of the book “waiting for something to happen”, then it did in the last 30 minutes. I enjoy Paul Tremblay, and I was disappointed in this one.

Not a fan

This is my second Tremblay book… I didn’t like Head Full of Ghosts, and I liked this less. Narration was great… but I kept hanging on, waiting for something good. Well, the ending was good. Unexpected after so much carrying on of nothing. The only good, and I don’t read entire books just for the ending. I will not be reading anything by this author again.

Definitely makes you think

The reader’s voice and drawn out annunciation made it difficult for me to push through past the beginning but the story was definitely unique and well-written.