The Pallbearers Club

"Creepy, funny and Gen X all the way: Art Barbara’s memoir is about his odd friendship with Mercy Brown, whom he meets in the late 1980s when he’s 17. She’s older. Cooler. She turns him on to punk music. Oh – and she feeds on his life force, or does she? While Art builds his case that she’s a New England vampire, Mercy (writing in the margins), firmly and hilariously disputes his memoir. By the end of The Pallbearers Club, you don’t know for sure if Art’s delusional or if Mercy is a gaslighter: It’s a deliciously nagging confusion that makes the book a masterful psychological thriller."