THE FABULOUS DUO

Introducing the Barlow-Bacigalupi twins, the heroes of the novel -- total strangers separated at birth. One is an unhappy corpse  and the other is a befuddled  coroner drinking himself to death.  Meet the two actors in their  movie lot trailers before  they go on stage. We'll give you their  back stories and excerpts from exclusive interviews.

As a bonus feature, you'll meet lovely Christina, the enchanting avatar and unemployed geneticist both men are madly in love with.

RAUL C. BARLOW  was  a  mild mannered reporter before being poisoned by ambition and arrogance. He thought he was  the cat's pajamas when he was given the lucky opportunity  to work as a foreign correspondent in Japan for a major newspaper. But  his career went south on account of a little brain tumor. He survived to struggle with the consequences of cancer and to reflect on mortality and the joys and sorrow of his life. Then late one night a speeding automobile mowed him down.

"It really hurt," Barlow said in a recent seance.  "I'd never died before so this was a real bummer. I was going to meet Christina in the morning after we'd been separated for three years. Holy shit, man!!"


LEONARDO DANTE BACIGAUPI  (Leo) is an assistant medical examiner on his last legs, an alcoholic on the verge of getting fired. He's called to the scene  of the fatal accident and notices immediately something remarkable about the corpse. Gradually he recognizes himself in the dead man's eyes and launches an unauthorized inquest of Barlow's hidden life, breaking into his house to rake through a box of hand-written journals and search an erratic collection of computer files.

"At some point it became obsessive, I guess," he told the MLAC Blog. "There I was doing a routine investigation of circumstances surrounding his death and suddenly the mystery of the man's life   consumed me. I had to know what made Barlow tick."


The bottom line is that My Life as a Cadaver is a love story.



CHRISTINA GUDEBSKI is the fiery paramour  Barlow was tragically separated from at the end of his rocky marriage. Pain and misunderstanding prevent them from reuniting, but Christina remained chaste  and after three years of waiting  she hired  a private detective to find her  lover in San Francisco. She seduces Barlow and later Leo with the siren song of her  blog, Narcissistic Chameleon Moo.