4-STAR REVIEW: MORTAL WEATHER by KP McCarthy

Publication Date: September 26, 2023

Stanhope Ellis finds himself absorbing the stories of quirky characters who have one thing in common: closeness to death. As he struggles with whether he’s Death Man or a cosmic witness, he meets a wise nurse, Gayathri Das, who helps him navigate the emotional minefield. But will she die, like the others? The unforgettable characters, including several dogs, will captivate you from the first page.

K.P. McCarthy takes and uses his belief that imagination is dying in our living midst. He gathers his hope that we can all let go of individual or collective hate and gives us Mortal Weather. 

Here, the reader follows the character Stanhope, who is plagued with witnessing unanticipated death while plowing through each day with mental and physical exertion.  

Stanhope Ellis is finding his stride in life, mainly because Eva appears with a lightness surrounded by flowers and chocolates. She is a curator. She reimagines “Stan’s” stuffy bookstore. She breathes life and success into it. But her reach is deeper than the way she rearranges the space. She restores Stan himself before death appears at the door where Eva had created their world. With little hope, Stan continues in a forward-moving stupor. Grief is central here, worn as a heavy cloak by Stanhope, weighted down with a relentless mortality. Why does death not let him live or even hold to hope? He is on a journey of acceptance.

Although I am sure there is a formal categorizing of this book, I think it transcends genre. What shelf would hold this book, define its genre, make it feel safe while calling to a passing-by reader? The author wrote in his forward that he is experimenting with style and describes this book as a different sort of novel. I would say this book is a different sort of experience—somewhere between poetry and prose. Aphoristic style is mentioned; short sentences express a truth in the fewest possible words. 

Yes, Mortal Weather is often infused with sentences of 2-4 words that wash over me, creating a feeling of beauty or sorrow, although not quite defining what is happening within these paragraphs. As a reader, I had to trust and continue the journey to see Stanhope through the miles ahead of him. 

McCarthy’s language leads you to continue. He uses a word or a phrase repeatedly throughout as a metaphor that brings you immediately to the source of its meaning. One example is Diorama. The word was well placed a dozen or so times to show scenes of life frozen for a moment, maybe a memory freezing it in time. Stanhope comes across stories that must be told by the characters he encounters. He is a witness to these dioramas. Maybe this is his new purpose. He may not be a curator of beauty, as his first love showed him, but he could be a conservator. He could take what is left behind after death and maintain life—hope. 

K.P. McCarthy seemed to have high esteem for, and often referenced, writer Jack Kerouac, a writer with a sporadic prose style in the 50’s and 60’s. I couldn’t help but mentally reference and compare his style to the movie director Richard Linklater. Both have a way of following the passage of time in all its ordinary moments, which become extraordinary when strung together. I must make note here that a 4-star rating is solely based on my assumption that many will find the style challenging to navigate. 

I commend the author for his writing experiment. I think the purpose of this author was a successful achievement. However, the average reader’s purpose will need to shift to search for more than a well-laid story but an enriching experience. 

Mortal Weather is a quiet, lovely gift of words to your mind, your soul. Set aside time to read this book. It does not, nor should it, propel you from page to page. It is meant to be tasted, savored, swallowed with sorrow, and sadness, and hope.  

Among other things, Kevin Patrick McCarthy has been a geothermal geologist, a technical writer, a critic, and a screenwriter. His humor, essays, poetry, and fiction have been widely recognized. “Enough Sky,” the epigraph for Mortal Weather, was Commended by The Poetry Society (UK) in 2014. He is a fourth-generation Coloradoan who now lives in the Pacific with his wife Tricia, and their dog, Nani.

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