Mortal Coil: A Comedy of Corpses

An undertaker in love with an heiress kidnaps her grandfather's corpse to help her find the will the old man wrote and swallowed before dying. Short-listed for the London Observer's PG Wodehouse Comic Novel Prize. The stage version is at Samuel French.

"From the moment I started to read this book I was crying with laughter. If you like dark humour and have a taste for knowing what you really shouldn't want to know you will love it. Brilliant characters and Great writing, be prepared to laugh your socks off." (thedeludedfool, below)

"A first-rate contemporary farce, one of the hardest - if not THE hardest genre to pull off. I look forward to seeing the movie." (J. Maas, below)

Theme song (for optimistic female voices, to the tune of Shuffle off to Buffalo):

When you’re in the mortuary
You may find it cold and scary —
No, no, don’t recoil.
Off you’re gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!

Comes the undertaker later
And he’ll drain your radiator
And he’ll change your oil.
Off you’re gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!

First he’ll put you on the table,
Then he’ll pump out your insides.
He’ll make your condition stable
With formal-de-hyde!

You’ll be magotty and wormy —
It’s enough to make you squirmy —
When you’re in the soil.
Off you’re gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!

Just because you feel immortal
Doesn’t mean you’ll never die.
You’ll get hard and rigor mortal —
No use to won-der why!

When you’re pushing up the daisies
You’ll be lying back and lazy —
No more moil and toil.
Off you’re gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off this mortal coil!
Shuffle off, shuffle off, shuffle off, shuffle off,
Shuffle off this mor-tal coil!

Quotes:

What is life, anyway, but a lingering feeling of guilt? Might as well enjoy it!

Don’t worry about photographs of yourself. You don’t look like that.

He thinks she farts fairy dust, and so does she.

“I thought you were going to change!” “Well, I’m still me.” I sighed inwardly. Still me.

She made a little swoon as if I already had her in the bowling grip and Mae-West-walked away.

What did I do, she wanted to know.
I told her I was an artist.
Oh, how interesting, what kind?
Conceptual stuff.
What was it, painting? Sculpture?
It wasn’t much of anything, I told her. I was a minimalist who had arrived at the supreme elegance of statement. I just didn’t do it!

“Of course money can’t buy happiness,” she reminded me.
“Not unless you know where to shop.”
She touched her chin to her shoulder in a way that suggested I might as well throw my chops on her right now. Just walk right up and achieve bliss. It would, her look said, be a bun-clenching experience.

A stooped elderly man came over and spoke to me. “Are you Delmore Danruther?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“I’m Walter Dadd. This is my crematorium.”
“Oh,” I said. “Gee. I’m sorry.”
Fire trucks were pulling in.

Nadine could put you back together if you swallowed depth charge.

Ebook design by 52 Novels
Cover by Peter Ratcliffe