Prill's book is an extremely twisted parody of Malamud's The Natural. The kicker? In The Unnatural, America's National Pastime isn't baseball. It's competitive embalming. Yep. I said embalming.
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Death is unavoidable. Whether it is your own death or that of someone else, everyone experiences it. For those who have not had a chance to take part in a funeral, death seems like a distant reality with each passing day. For those whose profession is in funerals, death is a cut-throat business (no pun intended). David Prill has created a world where the importance of world politics, world wars, and mass media are overshadowed by embalming. Embalming is not just a method to preserve corpses, it is an art, a competition, and above all a business. Andy Archway learns just how competitive the funeral business is as he attends one of the best Embalming universities in order to become a. Professional Embalmer and beat the embalming record his hero Mordecai holds. Along the way there is love, death, treachery, but mostly dead. One of the best unknown novels I have ever read. ( )